


Anything For You

by DisraeliGears



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Typical Themes, Canon-Typical Violence, Damen and Laurent have been trying to get the countries to unite, Fluff, Head Injury, Horses, Injury, M/M, Smuff, Smut, and now Damen has a Wise Idea, it isn't going well, post Adventures of Charls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-22
Updated: 2017-06-26
Packaged: 2018-11-03 18:58:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 39,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10973364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DisraeliGears/pseuds/DisraeliGears
Summary: Laurent will do anything for Damen. Including make friends with Nikandros...if he must.The story of Nikandros and Laurent's friendship.





	1. Of Snakes and Puzzles

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome! It's been a while since I've posted a multi-chapter, but here we are! Fic is complete, and updates Mondays. Canon typical warnings apply.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I can hear you thinking, Damianos. Just say what you wish to say.”  
> Damen chuckled, and Laurent felt the reverberation right against his cheek.  
> “Well… you ruined my clean bathwater.”  
> Laurent rolled his eyes.  
> “And yet, why do I feel no need to apologize?”  
> Damen trailed a hand through Laurent’s hair, smiling audibly.  
> “Because there is no need. And you wouldn’t, even if there was one.”  
> “Precisely.”

“Your Highness?”

Laurent’s fingers paused their convoluted actions, the little metal links poised in his hands.

“Jord?” 

The curtains hanging around him in his little window seat muffled his voice considerably.

“Er...Your Highness?” Jord’s voice bounced across the library, outside Laurent’s little cocoon.

“In the window, Jord.” Laurent called, slightly louder, and waited while the sound of footsteps grew louder and louder, and then the heavy curtains were pulled aside, revealing Jord, with his gleaming Veretian armor and sunburnt cheeks.

“Something the matter?” Laurent said sweetly.

“You asked me to tell you when the King of Akeilos was returned.”

Laurent raised an eyebrow. “And?”

“And he has, Your Highness.”

Laurent smiled to himself, just a little, before tempering it.

“Thank you, Jord. And where is he?”

“Your shared rooms.” 

Laurent nodded and then adjusted his seat on the pillow beneath him. The windowsill wasn’t very large, but it was the perfect place to sit when one wished to not be seen. 

“Very well.” he said. He redirected his attention to the little contraption of metal links in his hands.

He could wait. He could make Damen wait; it was all part of their game. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Jord looking at the device in Laurent’s hands with suspicion. 

“It’s a puzzle.” Laurent said, and held it up as explanation.

“Does it...do...something?” Jord asked.

“It’s supposed to come apart into a string of hoops. Or a little circle of them.”

“I see.” Jord gave it an untrusting look, “Well, I’ll take my leave and let you sort it out then, Your Highness.” he bowed and backed out from the gap in the curtains, letting them fall back together. 

Laurent twisted his fingers again, and the rings slid and pinched but did not give as they had when that child in the street had done it. They just made him increasingly frustrated, and his fingers sore. 

  
  


A while later, Laurent entered the luxurious royal solar. He paused, considered for a moment, then sat on a puffy chair in the antechamber and carefully unlaced his boots, slipping them off his feet and then proceeding into the main area of the bedchamber barefoot. 

It was empty.

Laurent glanced at the bed, draped in white curtains, then to the plain couches. While there wasn’t a figure strewn tiredly across either, there was a bundle of white cloth across the back of a chair.

The sound of water sloshing came from the attached bathing chamber.

Laurent’s breathing caught in his throat, and his heart kicked up in his chest. 

He walked slowly past the chair, letting his fingers draw across the fabric...fabric so recently wound around Damen’s skin and flesh… and then leaned on the threshold of the door, looking in. 

Laurent couldn’t stop the smile curling his lips if he wanted to, and couldn’t control the feeling of aching, sweet delight and anticipation swelling inside him.

Damen was in the tub, elbows on the edge, head rested back against the rim, eyes delicately closed in relaxed repose.

And, because he wasn’t exactly small, his one foot was out the far end of the tub, the other leg bent at the knee to be able to fit.

Laurent let himself openly admire Damen from his unobserved vantagepoint; his tawny skin remarkably similar to the copper tub, his black hair curling in big lazy waves slicked back with water. The creases of the big muscles in his shoulders and upper arms, defined and honed to perfection through almost constant use and rigorous training.

Laurent walked closer, silent on bare feet. He let his eyes wander over Damen’s calm, open face. His dark lashes, his lovely shaped nose, the perfect symmetry of his lips, the hard line of his jaw. 

_ He’s beautiful.  _

Laurent wanted to reach out and run his hands through the thick glossy hair, and kiss the worried lines on his forehead until they disappeared. 

Instead he crossed his arms, cupping his elbows in his palms.

“How was Ios?” 

Damen didn’t start or jump at Laurent’s voice, and didn’t even open his eyes. He just laughed under his breath and his lips twisted into a wry smile.

“Bland. Uninteresting. Unremarkable.”

Just hearing his voice echo through chambers that had for almost a month been devoid of him made Laurent dizzy. He covered it well.

“Oh? And why is that?”

“Because you were here, not there, of course.”

“Of course.” Laurent said, rolling his eyes at no one. 

Damen was smiling fully now, but his eyes were still lightly closed. 

Laurent sighed in a put upon sort of way, and tugged idly at one of the laces on his arm.

“Well. Enjoy your bath in my bathtub. I’ll be out here, running two countries from a desk.”

“Oh, I will.” Damen said, and seemed to readjust himself in the tub, settling down for a long nap.

Laurent went back into the bedchamber, and leveled his eyes at the cast aside chiton on the chair. He picked it up and let the fine material, fit for a king, slide across his palm like running water. He brought it near his face and let himself inhale. It smelled of all the smells that made up Damen: horses, leather, dry grass, clean sweat, fresh air.

It was the smell Laurent went to sleep thinking of, dreamed of all night, and awoke longing for desperately. And now, the source of all that longing was reclining in a hot bath.

Laurent folded the chiton meticulously and placed it on the couch, then crossed to the locking door of the Royal chamber. He opened it, looked at the nearest guard and said flatly “No interruptions, please, until we depart for dinner.”

“Yes, your Hi-” Laurent didn’t wait for an answer.

Laurent went to his wardrobe and began to unlace, eyelet by eyelet, ribbon by ribbon. He put his coat aside, his trousers and underthings, and the thin white shirt he wore beneath everything. Entirely naked, he went to the little cabinet by the bed and withdrew the little ceramic bottle of oil (unscented, as this was Akeilos after all).

He lay himself out on the bed, getting comfortable, then unstoppered the oil and poured a little onto his fingers. 

He closed his eyes and let his head fall back against the pillows, reaching his hand down between his thighs, past the aching, throbbing part of him already hard and waiting, wanting to be touched, to the most intimate part of his body.

It only took two minutes or so, excitement and anticipation making him tense, but arousal and cloying want buoying him onward. 

He twisted his slick fingers deep inside himself and stifled a little gasp with his other hand. He didn’t want to alert the bathing man in the next room.

He curled his fingers  _ just so _ , and his back arched off the bed momentarily before he withdrew his hand altogether.

Satisfied with his own preparedness, Laurent got to his feet a bit shakily. He padded silently back to the bathing room, not pausing until he was standing directly beside the tub.

He looked down at Damen- at his gorgeous broad chest, his toned long legs, the hard muscles of his abdomen, his lovely soft cock- and then back to his face.

“Damianos.” he said quietly.

Damen’s eyes slipped open, the low western sun glancing in and casting them bright as hammered gold.

He took in Laurent standing over him, nude and visibly aroused, and then met his eyes after a moment’s appraisal.

“Hard at work, I see.” he said, utterly deadpan. 

Laurent ignored this; he wasn’t in the mood for their witty rejoinder at that moment.

Reaching over to the far side of the tub, Laurent carefully steadied himself, not taking his eyes from Damen’s, and then stepped into the bath tub.

Water sloshed as he lowered himself, the level rising around them, until he was seated on Damen’s lap, facing him. 

They just looked at each other, taking the other in. Damen’s chest was rising and falling  _ just  _ too fast to pretend he was unaffected, and the pretense was utterly shattered when Laurent shifted and felt his interest growing beneath him insistently, nestled alongside Laurent’s own arousal.

Laurent brought his hands up, one slipping through the warm water to Damen’s chest and then up, over his neck, the other sliding back through his hair, so thick and smooth between his fingers.

Laurent slid closer, their chest’s almost touching.

“I missed you.” he said, and kissed Damen’s divine mouth.

Damen let out a low, barely audible groan of honest desire, and both his arms came up to circle Laurent’s body, his skin slippery with air-cooled water. He angled his head, let his mouth slip apart and invited Laurent’s tongue to lap just inside the seal of his lips. 

Laurent rocked his hips, his cock sliding underwater against the hard flesh of Damen’s lower belly. His breathing leapt out as a gasp between them, and it only continued when Damen slid his hands down to Laurent’s hips, his long fingers pressing dimples into his flesh, thumbs in the delicate and sensitive crease at the joining of Laurent’s thigh and abdomen. His ridiculous arms flexed and Damen rolled his body for him, making Laurent’s eyes slip closed as pleasure pooled in him.

“Open your eyes.”

From anyone else, it could have been too pushy. But this was Damen...and it was said reverently, sweetly, almost begging.

Laurent let his eyes open, and met Damen’s looking back at him. He shivered at the frankly ridiculous amount of  _ love _ pouring out of the other man’s eyes, unabashed and openly worshipful. 

“I missed you too.” Damen said, and pressed his forehead against Laurent’s, still rocking his body with a firm grasp on his hips, shifting in long, sinuous rolls.

Beneath him, sliding across the very place Laurent  _ really wanted him,  _ he could feel Damen’s arousal, hot and wanting and hard now, with every movement of his body.

Untangling his hand from Damen’s damp hair, he reached down behind himself and took a gentle hold of Damen, feeling his whole body tense when he did so.

Damen’s eyelids fluttered briefly, but he kept them open.

They were both breathing heavily now, panting in the little space between them.

Laurent raised his body and positioned Damen at his entrance, watching as his eyes widened in surprise when he breached Laurent’s body easily, followed by a long sundering groan as Laurent lowered himself down. 

“Laurent, you... _ ah… _ ” Damen gasped, biting his lower lip.

Laurent returned his hands to Damen’s neck, clutching at him with wet hands, and went back to kissing him hungrily, working himself in his lap with renewed fervor. 

Every push and pull of Damen inside him, huge and hot, was delicious. His hands on Laurent’s hips, gripping him and following him with his movements, were perfection. The taste of his mouth, eagerly welcoming him and being welcomed in kind, was the only heaven Laurent ever felt bothered to believe in.

This was more or less all Laurent had thought about for the last month- the taste of Damen, the delicious drag and pull of their joined bodies, the heavy fullness inside him-  and he knew he wasn’t going to last very long.

“D...Damen.” he hissed. Their lips parted and Laurent’s head fell back in abandon. Damen’s mouth went to his throat, to the soft skin behind and below his ear, the underside of his jaw, along his collarbone. 

“I’ve got you.” Damen said, his voice rough but gentle. He slid his hands up Laurent’s back, warm and wet, as he thrust up into him in time with Laurent fucking backwards. Damen was using his elbows hooked over the lip of the tub as leverage, and his skin squeaked on the metal of the tub.

Riding him in earnest now, Laurent reached one hand between them to grasp himself, only to have his hand wholly covered by Damen’s. Laurent swallowed the whine that wanted to escape him and dove back to kiss Damen, violent and not nearly as gentle as he was being treated himself. 

But that was it, wasn’t it? No matter how sharp, cruel or rough Laurent was with him...Damen would always be gentle. He would  _ always  _ be Damen.

Gasping, Laurent let himself be taken over. He surrendered all his carefully orchestrated control and gave himself over to the deep, climbing pleasure of Damen moving deep inside him, to their joined hands stroking his cock, and to Damen holding him close and kissing him like he was worth everything to him and more. 

Laurent came silently, desperately clutching Damen to him and muffling his cries by pressing his mouth to Damen’s throat, sucking and mouthing at his skin wetly. Damen stroked him through it, letting Laurent fall the whole way over the edge before bucking up roughly and following himself. He groaned loudly, much less restrained in this than Laurent ever could be.

Flushed and shaking, heat creeping across his pinked skin, Laurent kissed Damen, breathing heavily but still rocking his body gently to coax every ounce of pleasure from the man below him, as he had done for him. 

“L...Laurent.” Damen panted, one hand coming up to cradle Laurent’s cheek and hold him close.

Laurent grasped his hand and held it tightly, letting the aftershocks roll through him. He let himself relax bonelessly against Damen, eyes slipping open. 

Damen was looking back at him, eyes hooded, smiling and breathing with him. He tilted his face forward and kissed Laurent sweetly, his mouth warm and soft as satin.

“You  _ really _ missed me.” he panted quietly, and laughed under his breath.

Laurent hummed and slumped down, sliding deeper into the water. He hissed in oversensitized discomfort as Damen slipped out of him, turning his face into the broad, warm expanse of skin that was Damen’s chest.

Big arms circled him, and they lay that way for some time, listening to the other breathe in and out, the water slowly cooling around them.

Laurent shifted closer and pressed his ear to the centre of Damen’s chest, between the swollen muscles of his pectorals, and listened to his heart. 

The beat of it, so vital and close, erased every stress and worry that had followed Laurent for weeks. Just hearing it’s reassuring tattoo, and knowing who it belonged to, and that it only beat for  _ him _ ...no tall glasses of unwatered wine, or long rides across the countryside could replace that feeling. 

After a time, the texture of the silence above him suggested that Damen was no longer just basking, and was instead trying to say something but was unsure how to start.

“I can hear you thinking, Damianos. Just say what you wish to say.”

Damen chuckled, and Laurent felt the reverberation right against his cheek.

“Well… you ruined my clean bathwater.”

Laurent rolled his eyes.

“And yet, why do I feel no need to apologize?” 

Damen trailed a hand through Laurent’s hair, smiling audibly.

“Because there is no need. And you wouldn’t, even if there was one.”

“Precisely.”

Laurent let himself revel in the feeling of Damen twisting his fingers in his hair. He knew how they would look; burnished bronze and brightest gold

“Is that really all you wished to say?” Laurent said, after a while.

Damen sighed deeply.

“No.”

Laurent carefully and slowly sat up, pushing himself upright with his hands on Damen’s solid torso.

“Well?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

Damen examined Laurent’s face, eyes flicking from one feature to the next as if considering his state of mind.

“Would you do something for me?” he asked.

Laurent smirked.

“Clearly I would do  _ many  _ things for you. Against my better judgement, even, it would seem.”

“Something you probably won’t want to do.” Damen added.

Laurent let his fingers wander up and ran the tips along the hard line of Damen’s jaw.

“You won’t know until you ask.” he said quietly, and dragged his fingers down the front of his throat, past Damen’s Adam’s apple to the notch in his collarbone.

“I want you to try make friends with Nikandros.” Damen said, making pointed and direct eye contact.

Laurent burst out laughing.

Damen’s face did not change.

“You...you’re serious?” Laurent said, tempering his amused grin. 

Damen rubbed a weary hand over his face.

“He’s my number one advisor now, and I trust him only second to you.” 

Laurent said nothing, waiting for him to continue.

“He’s my oldest friend, Laurent. And now he’s the only family I have left.”

“And?” Laurent continued stroking along Damen’s collarbones, out and in.

“And he doesn’t trust my judgement. He doesn’t...talk to me as he used to _. _ But I can see his contempt, feel it. I can hear it in all the things he doesn’t say.”

“Because of me?” Laurent said, “He thinks I’ve compromised you? Your judgement?”

“I don’t know. But he doesn’t trust you. And he knows how...how you’re everything to me.” Damen gave Laurent a pointed look, and Laurent smiled a little, brushing a thumb along Damen’s bottom lip, “So he doesn’t trust me as he should, as he used to when we were boys, growing up in Ios or travelling across the country.”

Laurent reached up and coiled one of the loose curls hanging over Damen’s forehead around his finger, before letting it go and watched it bounce lazily.

“You aren’t boys in Ios anymore. You’re adults; he’s your subordinate, and you’re the king. You’re  _ his  _ king. His opinion of you is ultimately inconsequential.”

Damen frowned, and he looked at Laurent with a flash of anger that made Laurent’s eyes go wide. It was harmless, honest anger, but anger nonetheless. 

“He was  _ my best friend _ , Laurent, before I had you, or any of  _ this _ .” he gestured at Laurent, sitting naked astride him, “And I...I miss him. I miss laughing at him, with him. Travelling with him used to be the only way to break the monotony, but now he just...glowers at me.”

Laurent watched as Damen glared hard at nothing, and how the furrows in his brow grew deeper.

Laurent leaned in and pressed a kiss to them, taking Damen’s face in his hands and tilting it up to make eye contact.

“If this really does upset you so, then I will...try.” Laurent said, and he tried to look as sincere as he could.

If Damen wanted this, really  _ wanted  _ this, then he had to at least  _ try _ . Damen was all that Laurent wanted, and all that he was. He was the one who saw only good where Laurent felt sure there was none to be found.

All that was good...that was Damen.

For Damen, he  _ had  _ to. 

He looked into Laurent’s eyes, and the tension bled out of him a bit, the furrows on his face relaxing.

“You’re far too young to be giving yourself lines of worry, Damianos.” Laurent said, rubbing his forehead with his thumb.

Damen smirked, and then in one smooth motion, ran his hands over his flanks down to hook under Laurent’s thighs, and lifted him easily up as he stood and took them both out of the tub.

Laurent wrapped his legs around his waist, laughing despite himself.

“Barbarian.” he said, winding his arms around Damen’s neck.

“ _ Your  _ barbarian.” Damen replied, carrying him through their bedroom, leaving puddles of water behind them.

They reached the bed, and Damen dropped Laurent onto it. He was looking down with something akin to awe, standing over him glistening with water and gloriously backlit in the low sun. 

“We  _ do  _ have a dinner to preside,  _ Exalted. _ ” Laurent said, looking up through his eyelashes, all the while bringing up one hand and trailing it across the rises and divots of the perfectly defined flesh of Damen’s belly. His fingertips slipped wetly.

Damen growled and leapt onto the bed, pressing Laurent flat.

“Don’t care.” he hissed, and kissed Laurent senseless. 

 

↭↭↭

  
  


Nikandros rhythmically tapped his fingers on the giant round table, glaring at the map in front of him.

“...there is perceived unrest in the combined forces of Vere and Akeilos. A weakness they are hoping to exaggerate if the whole army travels to the coast.” Pallas was saying. He’d just returned from a long ride back to Delpha the night before, and looked extremely underslept.

“There’s no weakness.” Makedon said loudly, shifting in his chair like a man unused to sitting for any length of time, “To challenge two armies is simple stupidity; they will be easily dealt with.”

“Easily? Unlikely. They’ve killed every local force sent into try and kick them out, not to mention all the villagers they took without any problem.” Nikandros said dryly.

“They’re right.” Damen said, ignoring Nikandros’ addition, “If we send the Veretian forces with the Akeilon cavalry for a fortnight long march to Illysia and the coastal towns, there would be infighting. We know this, and they know this. So we have to decide what factions to send with minimal fuss.”

“You won’t be able to do it with any less than five thousand, and even then, that’s low. They land more mercenaries every day, and with all this time they’ve had, they will be dug in like a Vaskian horse tick. It’ll be a massacre if you don’t send almost everyone.” Pallas rubbed at his eyes.

“Then send no one.” Laurent said.

Silence fell across the table. Everyone’s head turned to look at the fair King of Vere, who had his chin resting on his palm.

Laurent sighed and got to his feet, looking down at the large map.

“If what Pallas says is true, then belief of unrest and instability has probably gone farther than just across the ocean in one direction. It’s not unheard of for a country to collapse after political upheaval, and doing what we’ve done is unprecedented. If I were a foreign commander, I’d assume Vere and Akeilos would crumble. And rightly so. But we won’t, because the King and I will not let it.” Laurent put a hand on Damen’s shoulder.

Nikandros ground his teeth, and had to resist the urge to roll his eyes when Damen smiled slightly.

“So? Why not send the army? They’ve been idle a long time; they need to get out and do what they’re trained to do.” Nikandros said, getting to his feet and frowning down at the table.

Laurent reached out and picked up the riding crop they’d been using to point out points on the map, sliding it through his long, pale fingers. 

“We don’t know what the mercenaries want. They’ve made no demands, and have taken no new ground. They just sit, and they wait. If we send five thousand troops, or more if need be, to the coast, we are left with...a thousand armed men in Delfleur? Less?”

Laurent crossed his arms, and gave Nikandros a look that made him almost want to spit.

“The country becomes an easy target, with the army two weeks away in Illysia. Whatever army it is that  _ hired _ the mercenaries to distract from the real motive, moves in and lays siege to the city. Even if they can get back, our army is on the outside, and us, the inside.”

“So you’re saying it’s a trick.” Nikandros said flatly.

“I’m saying the world is not so sweet and straightforward as you believe it to be.” Laurent dropped the crop on the table.

“What then? We let the mercenaries do what they want? Take all the Illysian women and children into slavery, kill everyone else and set up a stronghold?” Nikandros realized he was shouting.

Laurent’s face changed not one single bit. He just looked bored.

“No. But we can’t send all our soldiers, and leave the city open to attack.”

“An attack there is absolutely no evidence of possibly occurring!” Nikandros yelled back.

“Nik…” Damen said quietly.

“Damianos, you can’t possibly agree with him!” Nikandros said, looking to Damen for a voice of reason.

Damen gave him a look.

“We can’t rule it out,  _ kyros _ .” he said, slowly and carefully. That was his way of carefully reminding Nikandros that he was, in fact, the king, and Nik was on thin ice.

“Not everything is double-crossing and subterfuge! The only reason he suggests it is because he’s a Veretian, and that’s all their knotted minds can do!”

Laurent opened his mouth, but Damen shot him a look Nikandros didn’t understand, and Laurent let out a long, seething breath and said nothing.

“Enough.” Damen said, getting to his feet, “This bickering will get us nowhere. We send five thousand troops the day after the Hippophoria, to keep morale high, and then call in the reserves to train and live in the city until the campaign is over. No one takes our city, and no one attacks our people and gets away with it.”

“And the infighting, Exalted?” Pallas asked.

“Send Nikandros with them.” Laurent said, examining his nails.

Nikandros’ mouth fell open.

“ _ I can’t go to-” _ he began.

“It’s a good idea.” Damen said, adjusting his heavy red cape, “You have more authority than any of the generals, and you speak for Laurent and I. You can keep them in line.”

Nikandros just stared at Damen, who was giving him an earnest look.

“I...yes, Exalted. As you wish. I will gladly speak for...you.” 

Damen shot him a look, but then another at Laurent, who rolled his eyes minutely and got up.

Nikandros waited until the two kings, side by side and so ludicrously different in silhouette- one broad and tall, the other slim and slight- had left the chamber, before swearing loudly and slamming his fist on the table.

Pallas, who’d been dozing off, jumped.

“Oh, don’t complain so.” Makedon said, getting up and adjusting his sword belt around his middle, which was more ample now in his middle age, “Coming on the campaign will be good for you. Kill a few people- you’ll feel better.”

 

↭↭↭

 

Laurent sipped on watered wine and fed a grape into his mouth, followed by a piece of cheese.

He sat on a couch, and he waited, twisting the metal cuff on his wrist around as he often did.

There was the sound of approaching footsteps, and then the sound of the heavy door to the solar being slammed shut.

“Damen, if this is about me being too mean to your pet snake, then I  _ will- _ ”

Nikandros came around the corner and practically slid to a halt in the middle of the room, mouth hanging open as he froze mid-sentence.

“Ah.” Laurent said, getting to his feet and brushing invisible crumbs off the fine brocade that made up his coat, “Wrong king, I think.”

Nikandros just stared.

Laurent pointed lazily to the bronze wine jug on the table.

“Drink?” he asked.

Nikandros seemed to recover himself then, shaking his head and then clearing his throat.

“No. Er...no thank you, your Highness. My apologies.” he was gritting his teeth, Laurent could see it in the flexing of his cheeks and jaw.

“It would appear,” Laurent said, walking casually closer, “that we have a problem, you and I.”

Nikandros gave him a wary look. 

“Problem …  _ singular? _ ” he said slowly.

Laurent blinked. 

Interesting.

Standing in front of him, Laurent could see where Nikandros and Damen differed. Nikandros was a few inches shorter and finer boned, but without Damen’s striking made-for-currency face. His hair was a tad shorter, the curls a bit tighter, but the colour the same glossy black. His handsomeness was of the healthy, stubborn variety that Laurent admired in an objective sort of way one might a painting or a nice dog.

But the primary differences between the two were not visual. 

Where Damen entirely lacked guile or subtlety, Laurent could see the layers of cogs turning in Nikandros’ mind. He could feel himself being watched and calculated whenever Nik was around, and  he was more than aware that Nikandros felt Laurent didn’t even close to add up. 

Where Damen was clever but straightforward, Nikandros was clever and flexible.

And he knew a bullshitter when he saw one.

Laurent smirked.

“Probably more than one. But that, Nikandros, is why I asked you here.” Laurent put his goblet down and went over to his desk, opting instead to perch on the edge of it. 

“Not to kill me, I hope.” Nikandros approached the other side of the desk, glancing at the paper strewn across it, “Or have me whipped.”

The brief moment of eye contact he made said volumes.

“No, alas, my whip and cross are being repaired at the moment. A pity, really.” Laurent shifted, and watched as Nikandros eyed him from across the desk, “I asked you here because I have, at Damianos’ behest, decided that you and I should be, if not exactly  _ friends,  _ then at least not openly antagonistic towards one another.”

Nikandros opened his mouth, then closed it, then reopened it.

“Damen...wants us to be  _ friends _ ?” he said.

“Yes. More or less.” Laurent raised an eyebrow at him, “Is it so difficult to imagine that I might want to fulfill his wishes?”

“No. It is difficult for me to imagine you being friendly.”

Laurent’s lips twisted wryly into an unpleasant smile. 

“Then I will try to expand your imagination.”

Nikandros said nothing, just stared back stubbornly.

Laurent got lightly to his feet and wandered back over to the couches, where he sat and picked up a single grape, and held it up to examine it in the light.

“The idea of friends - that is, people you can trust implicitly to always have your best interest at heart- is rather new to me. It’s not the sort of thing I cultivated until quite recently. Damianos is the first and only, and the ease of our relationship is due in large part to the fact that there is no deference needed between us; I am king, he is king. We are equals to only one another, and so are perfect partners.” Laurent lowered the grape and began to peel it methodically, “You, though not an equal, show little deference to me or your king. You grew up with Damen as boys.You played together, schooled together, hunted and rode together...fucked together...” Laurent glanced at Nikandros and smirked at the angry red blooming across his cheeks, “You were not social equals, but you were treated a such, and so you are comfortable with addressing royalty. This comfort apparently extends to me, but with less affection and more...distaste? Loathing, perhaps? Regardless, what it also means is that you and I could also be  _ friends. _ ” Laurent ate the now peeled grape and regarded Nikandros plainly. “Well? I know you have an opinion.”

Nikandros seemed to mull for a few moments, before he turned to look out the nearest window, draped in white linen.

“Yes. You’re right. Damen is my best friend, and closer to me than any of my siblings. We grew up together and are as close as any two blood brothers could be. He’s also my king and I his kyros, so my duty is to him and my country. I love him not because I must, but because I choose to. Yes, when I see him utterly smitten with you...you, who is not in the least bit apologetic for stripping the meat off his very bones...I get annoyed. When he is swayed by you, who seems to only think in loops and knots with which to choke someone, I get  _ aggravated _ . Do you see,  _ your Highness,  _ why I may be hesitant when you offer me friendship?”

Laurent blinked slowly, then looked down at the back of his hand where it was holding the edge of a cushion tightly. He willed it back under control, relaxing each finger joint by joint.

“Your anger is understandable. I won’t apologize for any of my actions, recent or long passed, but know I know from where your bitterness is sourced. In my own defence, I will say that to live in Vere, one must think in loops and knots, or they will be cast aside. As the crown prince surrounded by people who wanted to kill me and usurp my throne...this is even more so.”

“You aren’t in Vere. This is Akeilos.”

“No. We are in  _ both _ .” Laurent shot back, and levelled a hard stare at Nikandros that had dissolved men to tears on a few occasions. 

Nikandros simply dipped his head.

“Yes. My mistake.”

Laurent sighed. “Or at least, we are  _ supposed _ to be in both.”

Nikandros looked at him sideways.

“You...doubt the strength of the combination?”

Laurent was silent for a few beats, eyes drifting over Nikandros’ tense frame.

“It is one thing for me to  _ say  _ that Damen is also king of Vere, and him to say I am also king of Akeilos...it is entirely another for it to be a fact.”

“You are dubious as to the loyalty of people to a king who has been their lifelong enemy, you mean?” Nik said dryly.

“I mean that wishing for something does not make it happen.”

Nikandros gave him a direct and intense look, more than he ever had before. Fortunately, Laurent was nothing if not impermeable to stares.

“Does...Damen know you think this?” he asked mildly.

Laurent ignored him.

He shifted in his seat and tugged at the laces of his sleeve. It was hot in the solar, and damp from recent rain. 

“So, what you said in council,” Nikandros continued, “About how Vere and Akeilos will not crumble because you will not let it…”

“And we will not. At least, not as a...conscious decision. These things are difficult; you know this. You have seen the battles we have fought.” 

“I have.” Nikandros said, and he was looking at Laurent intently, “Yet you lie to the council?”

“The purpose of the council is not to air my doubts and fears.” Laurent tilted his head just so, returning Nikandros’ stare. Nicaise had said once that that particular mannerism made him seem like a lizard. “Am I not allowed my private failings? I know you enjoy them.”

Nikandros looked away, face stormy, and said nothing.

Laurent picked up another grape from the tray in front of him.

“You don’t have to go to Illysia. Makedon is going, and the entire Veretian army is either terrified or in awe of him. He can keep them in line as well or better than you can. You are stood down.”

Nikandros visibly sagged with relief.

“Thank the gods. I...thank you.”

“Consider it a gesture of friendship.” 

Nikandros tensed again, just a bit.

“...Okay.” he said, eyebrows furrowing. Then, he looked at the edge of Laurent’s desk and his eyes went wide.

“That…” he said, pointing.

Laurent followed his gaze and frowned.

“It’s a puzzle. It’s supposed to-”

“Come apart, yes. I know. The smithy by the river makes them, has since I was a little boy.” Nik picked up the little metal contraption.

“I think I’ve broken it- there was a child in the street able to make it work as if it were as easy as breathing, but I can’t seem to-”

Laurent stopped as Nikandros twisted one finger and the entire ball of metal rings came unravelling into a long strand, like a chain, hanging off his thumb.

Laurent sprang to his feet and rushed over, glaring down at Nikandros’ hands.

“You did it! How-” he stopped and grit his teeth.

Nikandros was smirking.

“The king of Vere, renowned everywhere for his unparalleled cleverness...foiled by a child’s puzzle toy. Can this possibly be true?” 

Laurent ignored him and took the long chain of links, turning them over in his hands.

“It must be a trick.”

“That depends on your definition of a trick. The links are solid, but if you mean that it’s a seemingly difficult feat performed very easily if you know how, then yes, it is a trick.”

Laurent looked at Nik’s face, and saw the genuine mirth there. It was teasing….and yet...it didn’t seem hostile, not like what was usually aimed at him. 

Laurent shoved the chain back at him. 

“Show me.”

“Where would the fun be in that? You have to figure them out yourself, or it’s worthless.”

Laurent only just stopped himself from snarling. 

“I have, oh, about fifteen of them. Other ones; some harder, some more simple. I can give you one of the easier ones to get your eye in. If you want.” Nik took the chain back.

Laurent hesitated, but then remembered the look of anger flashing across Damen’s face yesterday evening.

_ He was my best friend, Laurent, before I had you, or any of this. _

“Fine. But tell no one.” he said, as regally as he could muster in the circumstance. 

Nikandros was openly grinning now, and with a simple flurry of movement, had the chain coiled up exactly as before, ready to be solved.

“Oh, never. Your reputation would collapse utterly from here to Vask.”

Laurent fumed internally. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I start a fic with smut? Why yes, I did.


	2. The Hippophoria

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Laurent makes his opinons known about the horse trainers of Akeilos. He also acquires a sunburn. *NOW WITH FIXED FORMATTING :D*

According to Damen’s enthusiastic explanation the next morning, The Hippophoria, or ‘Festival of the Horse’, was a much loved and honored tradition throughout Akeilos. It was held every fall in Delfleur, intended for people to come from all over the country, and even from some neighboring nations, to buy and sell horseflesh as well as partake in a series of mounted games. With the army gathering and the reserves moving into the city, it was promised to be even larger than usual this fall.

“Will you be partaking in any of these ‘games’?” Laurent asked mildly, slicing a grapefruit in half with quick precision, his breakfast tray balanced carefully on his lap.

Damen shrugged and popped a piece of cured meat into his mouth, then lay back into his pillows and stretched his whole body luxuriantly. 

“Maybe. If the competition seems good.”

Laurent eyed Damen’s bare, lovely body flexing beside him, but then went back to his grapefruit. He had things he had to do that morning besides engage in bedsports.

“I’ve never seen any Akeilon rider even close to the level of the horsemasters in Arles.” he said mildly, scooping out the sweet pink pulp with his thumb.

Damen tucked an arm behind his head and smirked in amusement. Laurent let his eyes linger on the way the movement accentuated his bicep, then looked back to his fruit.

“Akeilon riding is about functionality and warfare, not overwrought movements and patterns like Veretian riding.”

“You say this, but I think it also is likely due to the fact that all your horses are about as overly bulky and un-agile as their gigantic riders.” Laurent held a section of grapefruit in his hand, the juice dripping in sticky rivulets down his wrist. On his pale skin, the pink stood out all the brighter.

Damen chuckled darkly, and then leaned forward and without preamble or warning, ran his tongue up Laurent’s forearm, from elbow to wrist, licking up the drip.

His eyes glittered naughtily once he reached Laurent’s hand, and Laurent narrowed his own in return.

“You are despicable.” he said, entirely without conviction. 

“You say this often...and yet, I am never  _ truly _ convinced.” Damen grinned, and then stole the grapefruit from Laurent’s fingers. 

“Despicable.” Laurent said again, and got himself more.

By the time they had more or less cleared the tray of food, there was a shuffling noise and the servant who had brought breakfast ( _ servant _ ; not slave) bowed his way into the room.

“The kyros is here, and bids entry.” he said, head bowed.

“Yes, very well.” Laurent said, brushing honey biscuit crumbs off his fingers and setting the tray aside. Damen snagged the last piece of sweet fruity cheese before the tray was out of his reach.

After a moment, Nikandros’ voice drifted into the room.

“Er...I’m coming around the corner.” he called, not appearing from the antechamber.

“Yes, Nik; we know. You can come in.” Damen replied loudly, ignoring Laurent rolling his eyes.

“I would, only Pallas told me about the time where you  _ said _ he should come in but-”

“I am not naked, Nikandros, if you are worried about offending your adorable Akeilon sensibilities. Nor is Damianos.” Laurent glanced sideways, and did a quick adjustment of the sheets that were doing a quite poor job of concealing Damen from, well... _ anything _ , “Or at least, he isn’t any longer.”

Nikandros came around the corner, fully dressed in his regalia befitting an acting kyros. He looked visibly relieved to see that Laurent had indeed been telling the truth.

“Good morning, Nikandros.” Damen said, grinning lopsidedly.

“Good morning, Exalted. I see you are actively kinging this morning.”

“Oh yes.  _ Actively.”   _ Damen said, and settled deeper into his many pillows.

“The greatest conqueror of our era.” Laurent said, and smiled to himself when Nikandros snorted.

“You wanted something, Nik?” Damen said, pulling the sheets up over his head.

“The nobles from the islands of Crete, Delos and Tyre are docking within the hour. Considering we owe almost half our mercantile income to them, I felt perhaps you would wish to greet them on the docks.”

Damen  heaved an enormous sigh and sat up, the sheet falling off his face. His ridiculous curls bounced about in a manner Laurent found utterly and stupidly endearing.

“You are correct. I don’t like it, but you are. Yes, I’ll meet them. Gather a suitably honorable looking guard, would you?” Damen got out of bed as a lion might, yawning and stretching and taking his time. Laurent couldn’t help but observe.

“Your Highness.” 

Nikandros’ voice snapped him out of his distracted reverie.

“Yes?”

With a gentle underhand motion, Nikandros threw something to him. Laurent caught it deftly, and looked at it.

It was a wooden pyramid shape, made up of many little blocks of shaped wood.

Laurent blinked at it and turned it in his hands.

“What does it do?” 

“It doesn't do anything. You just have to take it apart, then put it back together the same way.”

Laurent nodded, already pulling at some of the pieces. They were all lodged resolutely in place.

“This is a...simpler one than the one with rings?” he asked.

“Yes. This is the one I was given when I was a boy.”

Damen re-entered the main chamber, fastening his chiton.

“What is… oh  _ Gods _ \- the puzzle toys, Nikandros?” he said, groaning.

“I am trying to master them. It is an exercise of the mind.” Laurent said primly.

“It’s useless and an exercise in futility.” Damen grumbled, adjusting the drape of the cloth across his chest.

“The only one I ever lent you, you lost patience with after less than a day and used your sword to pry it apart and break it.” Nik raised an eyebrow.

“I am not surprised in the least.” Laurent muttered, turning the pyramid in his hands.

“Useless.” Damen repeated.

“Despicable.” Laurent shot back, glancing up at him from his spot on the bed.

Damen grinned.

 

 

↭↭↭

 

 

Nikandros took a deep breath of clean air, scented with hay and horse sweat, and tried to be optimistic. 

The Hippophoria had always been one of his favorite festivals, ever since he was a toddler dragged along by his gaggle of older sisters and an armed guard to protect Lord Epiminondas’ only son. It was a flurry of activity and loud noises, with horses and people and food and dogs and children.

The Hippophoria had been where he’d met Damen for the first time. 

Nik was just newly six, and Damen only a few months behind him. Nik’s father had dragged him up and introduced him to Theomedes, for whom Epiminondas had gone to war  time and time again. Nikandros was the first boy born after seven girls, and his father was over the moon excited to show his king he finally had an heir to his military dynasty. 

“My son, Exalted. Called Nikandros, for my father.” he’d said, resting a hand on Nik’s curly head.

Theomedes, who at that time had seemed enormous and terrifying, with huge corded muscles and a heavy braid he wore down his back, had knelt down and looked Nik in the eye.

“Nikandros. Do you know I have a son right about your age?”

Nik had just stared, eyes like saucers.

Theomedes had turned and beckoned over his shoulder to another boy, who’d been standing beside a different, much older boy and playing with a wooden sword.

“Damianos. Come here.”

The boy had come forward and smiled at Nik with a big grin. He’d been missing a front tooth, as children often were at that age.

“Hi. I’m Damen.” he’d said.

Nik blinked at the boy, and then looked up at his father questioningly.

Theomedes had chuckled as Epiminondas leaned forward to speak to his son.

“This is Prince Damianos, Nik. He will be your king one day.”

Nik had looked back at Damen, who was still grinning.

“Um.” Nik had said, glancing down at his sandal and kicking the dirt, “Can I play swords too?” 

Damen had instantly looked even more delighted.

“Yes! You can play with me and my brother Kastor.”

Nik felt his father give him an encouraging shove, and off he ran after the Prince, their sandals flapping in the dirt, chitons blowing in the dusty wind, pieces of loose hay getting stuck amongst their dark curls. And so it had begun.

Twenty years later, and the world had changed profoundly.  Somehow, though, it had spun around in such a way that it was remarkably similar to how it had been all those years ago.

Nik and Damen were striding through the throng of grooms, riders, nobles and horses, and it felt to Nik as if time had reversed. There were some differences, of course; Damen wore the red cape signifying his ascension to his birthright. Nik wore the light armor suited to his office and military rank, and they were flanked on both sides by heavily armed men. 

The smells, sounds and sights were the same, however. It was a bustle of activity everywhere one cared to look.

“I can’t wait to see what the Veretians think of all this.” Damen said, grinning and waving at a little girl in her mother’s arms.

“They’ll call us barbarians under their breath and feel superior. As they always have.” Nik replied.

“Perhaps. But then they will drink in the evening, bet on a race, and suddenly they aren’t so superior.”

Nik hummed to himself but kept his doubt under his tongue.

Up ahead, in a sea of colourful tents, were the Veretian merchants come to take advantage of the new open trade borders. Nikandros saw jewelry far too garish and impractical to ever tempt an Akeilon woman, and clothing much too heavy for the local temperatures. Veretians didn’t seem to think ahead for these kinds of things.

As if in direct punishment for his thoughts, the crowd to the right parted and the King of Vere was there, flanked by the surly Jord and roguishly ridiculous Lazar. 

Laurent approached them, ignoring the open mouthed stares from all the Akeilon common folk around him. He gave Damen a look, one blonde eyebrow raised.

“This is anarchy.” he said, and crossed his arms. 

He was in his full Veretian regalia, restrictive heavy brocade, tight lacing and all, despite the heat.

“It’s a festival. It’s supposed to be anarchy.” Damen smirked down at him.

“There were children having a fight with balls of horse shit, Damen.  _ Throwing _ it at each other in the street.” 

Nikandros coughed.

“It’s...a tradition for the children. It always happens.” Damen shrugged.

“We did it when we were kids.” Nikandros added, just to see Laurent’s pretty nose wrinkle in distaste.

“I see. Did you roll in mud with the pigs, too? Perhaps bathe in the water with the geese?” 

“Of course not.” Nikandros said, affecting as offended a tone as he could muster. 

Laurent tilted his head questioningly.

“Only Damen did those things.” 

Damen rolled his eyes, but Laurent smiled despite himself. It was a tiny thing, but it made Nikandros relax a bit. 

“Nikandros has a horse being warmed up right now. His trainer brought her to compete in the military maneuvers tomorrow. We’re going to see her go; would you like to join?” Damen was giving Laurent an indulgent, ridiculously smitten smile. 

“If only to confirm my assumption of how truly superior Veretian horses are, why not.”

Nikandros tried not to despair too dramatically, but as he knew would happen, he ended up beside Jord a few paces behind as the two kings walked side by side through the streets. Ahead of them, the crowd of Akeilons and sparse Veretians split wide.

Nobles and peasants alike stared openly, and Nik didn’t blame them in the least. The two of them, idly strolling along as if nothing could possibly bother them, couldn’t have made for a more juxtaposed picture.

Damen was an easy head taller and almost twice as broad across the shoulders as Laurent, his crimson cape hanging luxuriantly and sweeping with each step. He strode like all large and muscular men did, with the sinuous sway from side to side, whereas Laurent’s steps were measured and balanced like a dancer, no footfall unaccounted for. The sun fell on Damen’s bare shoulders, his skin gleaming like bronze, while Laurent’s hair shone like the brightest gold. 

Different though they might have looked, they moved as a tandem unit. Each brush of their shoulders and elbows, turn of their heads, catch of their eyes on the other, made any onlooker realize they were looking in at something impenetrable. The two of them were attached via a thousand invisible threads, and no one, not Nik or Jokaste or that abominable Regent, could sever them, before or now.

“You raise horses?” Jord asked gruffly in accented and uncomfortable but passable Akeilon. 

Nik glanced at him out of the corner of his eye.

“I have a few breeding mares and a stallion I keep with my father.” Nik replied.

Jord nodded and seemed to think about this for a while.

“Well done.” he said, finally.

Nikandros furrowed his eyebrows briefly. Alright then. 

The training arena- a large open area of sand and dirt-  was crowded with many horses and their riders, milling about at various speeds. As the kings approached, the people watching parted to allow them space next to the fence.

“That’s her there.” Nik said, pointing at a palomino filly being ridden by a wiry man on the far side of the ring.

Damen nodded appreciatively. “I like her. She is built like your stallion.”

Nikandros glanced at Laurent, who was watching with a pinched expression. 

“She’s been broke for a year now. My trainer is the best there is in the area, and has her working well.” Nik said, leaning on the fence next to Damen. 

Damen hummed in agreement, and then made a surprised noise. 

“Makedon is here. I should greet him.” he looked to Laurent, who waved a hand idly. 

“Go.” he said, sounding bored, “He will corner me and yell-speak at me before long, I am sure.”

Damen grinned at that, gave Laurent a swift kiss on the forehead, then strode off around the outside of the ring towards Makedon and his party. Nik realized too late that left him alone with Laurent, Jord and Lazar standing unobtrusively aside.

They watched Nikandros’ filly in silence for a while, her rider circling closer and closer to where they stood. Across the arena, Damen’s laughter could be heard plainly.

Nikandros looked at Laurent again, and saw he had a distinctly dissatisfied glower about his face. 

“What? What is it?” Nik said.

“Your trainer is terrible. The mare is sweet and honest but your rider is unworthy of her.”

“Wh-...he’s the best trainer in Akeilos!” Nikandros said, voice raising. 

“He is harsh with his hands, crude with his seat and uses his legs improperly. The horse can only do what she is being told, and she is being told incorrectly.”

Nikandros floundered.

“Your Highness, he is  _ perfectly  _ adequ-”

“You there!”

Laurent’s voice, when necessary, carried well and it cut across the arena like a knife. 

Many riders looked up, including Nikandros’ trainer. 

Nik watched dumbfounded as Laurent hopped the fence athletically and strode across the dusty arena, entirely ignoring the startled stares.

Nikandros could see his trainer pale in horror when he saw Laurent coming towards him, and blanch further still when Laurent grabbed the mare’s bridle and yanked the reins from his hands. Nik couldn’t hear what they were saying, but judging by the increasingly terrified look on the man’s face, Laurent was living up to his legacy as a master of the dressing down. 

Nikandros glanced at Damen, who was watching with an amused expression from the far side of the ring beside Makedon. Makedon was laughing heartily. By the time he looked back, Laurent was leading the horse toward Nikandros with a stormy expression, the trainer jogging along behind. 

“He uses his legs entirely improperly, and expects her to carry herself nicely just while he seesaws on the bit. It’s a terrible habit, one all Veretian riders are trained meticulously not to have.” Laurent threw the reins to the trainer, “Hold her a moment. Nikandros!” Nik blinked as Laurent leapt the fence and came to stand in front of him, “Unlace the back.” he turned around and presented Nik with the long line of laces down his spine. 

“Unlace...what?” Nikandros said, disbelief colouring his words.

“My  _ coat _ . Truly, I’m amazed Akeilos is as functional a nation as it is; you all barely understand the most basic instructions.” Laurent was quickly and efficiently undoing the laces on his wrists and at his throat.

Nikandros slowly raised his hands and began to unlace the ties along the king of Vere’s back, glancing at Damen as he did so. 

His eyes were narrowed suspiciously.

As soon as Laurent was free of the lacing, he shrugged carelessly out of the heavy shirt and shoved it into Nikandros’ empty hands. He was left just in a flowing white undershirt, the pale, pale marble skin of his throat and collar bones on display for everyone to see. 

He didn’t seem to notice.

Laurent climbed over the fence once more and threw the reins over the mare’s head. He seemed to consider the saddle a moment, then undid the girth and pulled the thing off, leaving only the saddlecloth behind. He shoved the whole lot into the unresisting hands of the trainer, and then in an easy and practiced motion, leapt onto the filly’s golden back.

“Watch and see how it should be done. If you cannot imitate it, do not bother staying.” Laurent said scathingly, and trotted off.

Nikandros looked down at the garment in his hands, and wasn’t surprised he’d needed it off in order to ride; it was  _ heavy _ , the material thick and richly woven. It was structured in every seam, and even appeared to be stiffened with boning in some areas. 

Veretian garments seemed more like torture devices than actual clothing. 

Nikandros looked back up as the trainer approached, grimacing as though he’d just survived a shipwreck. 

“My lord kyros.” he said faintly, placing the saddle on the fence. 

“Congratulations, Ardat, you have officially met the King of Vere.” 

Ardat grimaced.

“...thank you, my lord.” 

Nik watched as Laurent rode across the ring, the filly’s gold coat gleaming in the sun as his own hair flashed the same. Just like the thick gold cuff on his wrist. His long shirt flowed out behind him, fluttering in the warm dusty breeze.

The longer he watched, the more Nikandros got annoyed.

Laurent was, quite simply, a superb rider. He sat tall and balanced on the horse’s back, elastic and soft yet solid. He looked as though he had been born to it.

“He’s very good, yes?” 

Nikandros was yet again yanked out of his grumpy, vindictive reverie by Jord, who had come up to stand by the fence. He apparently moved as silent as a spider.

Nikandros grunted noncommittally.

“He was taught by his father, and then his brother.’” Jord continued,  “After Marlas, he taught himself. The majority of his teenage years, I think, were spent on a horse.”

Nik was curious enough to ask if The Regent had taught Laurent anything as well, but he opted not to. He had only brought up the man once since his death, in passing conversation with Damen, and had been almost bowled over with the weight of his ire.

“You do not speak of him. Not to me,  _ not to Laurent _ , and not to anyone. He has passed into history where he belongs and, Gods willing, from which he will eventually fade. He is not worth even the breath you draw to mention his name.” Damen had glared hard at Nik then, his face like thunder.

Needless to say, Nikandros hadn’t mentioned him since. 

“He hunted?” Nik asked conversationally.

“On occasion. He preferred to ride out alone, or train young horses in the yards near the castle in Arles. He has a touch with the difficult ones.”

Nikandros looked at Jord’s face, and saw the pride there. It wasn’t just the pride of a citizen for their king: it was pride of a protector, almost paternal in its intensity.

“Perhap he sees himself in them.” Nik said, smirking. 

Jord gave him a sharp look, eyes examining Nikandros’ face for any sign of cruelty.

“I tease.” Nik said.

Jord frowned and then looked back at Laurent, who was cantering now in a large sweeping circle. The filly took smooth, collected strides, carrying herself with relaxed poise.

“You should not. He is your king.”

“At the moment, he’s the one who stole my horse.” 

Jord seemed to relax slightly.

“Yes. He will do that. I...I understand he can be difficult. But to know him is to love him ardently, of that I can assure you.”

Nik crossed his arms and said nothing. He wasn’t sure about ‘love’ or ‘ardently’, but he might eventually be able to not openly despise the Veretian king. 

Maybe.

Perhaps.

Laurent stayed on the horse for almost half an hour, riding in circles, figure eights and long ellipses at different paces. The mare’s coat was darkening with sweat, Laurent’s skin turning pink in the sun. When he trotted passed Nikandros and Jord, he was visibly glistening with perspiration. 

When he finally brought the horse back to the walk, he bent and stroked along her neck as she stretched out her nose, nostrils puffing wide open. Nik thought he heard quiet, sweet endearments in Veretian murmured to her as well. 

Damen had wandered back over to where they stood, and came up to stand beside Nik, where he watched Laurent with a small smile on his lips. 

Laurent reined her to a halt beside them at the fence, and beckoned Nikandros over. 

“She is an asset to your breeding program, Nikandros, and if you ever let that horrible man on her again I will have you arrested for outrageous stupidity.”

“Ardat is very well known in these parts. You’ll cause quite a stir if your publicly discredit him.” Nik replied.

Damen had jumped the fence as well, and was still gazing up at the Veretian king with an amused look on his face.

“Have I given the impression I mind causing a stir?” Laurent said, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. 

He was cut off from saying anything further, however, because he was snagged by two big hands around his waist and was pulled bodily down off the horse.

Laurent caught himself on Damen’s shoulders, and wrapped his long legs around the King’s waist as he was held aloft, wearing a falsely disgruntled expression.

“That was very foolish- the horse is very young, and could have shied.” 

Damen ignored this. 

“You were showing off.” he said quietly in mock chastisement, and he was grinning.

“I was demonstrating the correct method. That hardly constitutes showing off.”

Damen’s grin widened, and then he smothered it by kissing Laurent firmly, winding his  large arms around his slim torso.

Laurent, for his part, made a pleased sort of noise and wrapped his own arms around Damen’s neck, kissing back with just as much gusto.

“I’ll just take the horse and your discarded clothing then, shall I?” Nik said, rolling his eyes heavenward. 

 

↭↭↭

“Those boys will do as they always have, and do their jobs quickly and thoroughly. I have no doubt that Ilyssia will be flying the tandem banner by nightfall of the new moon.” 

Laurent grimaced and had to physically restrain himself from massaging his temples. He’d been nursing a headache all day, and the sun exposure that afternoon hadn’t helped. The mere weight of his coat on his burnt shoulders stung like a hoard of trapped hornets, and he felt as though he were _radiating_ pain.

And now….well,  _ Makedon.  _

__ “Ruthless efficiency.  _ Ruthless efficiency _ ; that’s how this will be done.” Makedon continued, nodding and furrowing his eyebrows gravely. 

The Akeilon word for ‘ruthless’ had a harsh fricative in the middle, and it felt as though someone was jabbing Laurent in the temple with a awl.

“ _ Yes.  _ Yes, I agree, general, thank you for your vehement patriotism. It does you and your...boys...credit.” 

The dinner was the first of the festival, and therefore the most popular and attended of the entire week. It was held in the huge hall of the Delfleur palace, the tandem flag draped over every pillar and colonnade, and a giant fire in the centre roasting what appeared to be an entire oxen. The smell was quite strong and the smoke greasy, and did very little to help Laurent’s headache. 

“Good evening, your Highness.” Laurent turned at the sound of not only a woman’s voice, but also one speaking Veretian. 

Vannes was approaching, smiling in that secretive way Laurent had come to associate with all women of the court.

“Vannes. I didn’t know you were making the trip South.”

“And miss this...event? Of course not.” She looked around at the huge vaulted ceilings and the hissing, spitting mountain of meat over the fire, “It’s quite the spectacle.”

“Mm.” Laurent said, and indulged in the massaging of his own forehead. 

“Someone mentioned that the King of Vere was riding a horse in only his shirtsleeves today.” Vannes said, “Could that perhaps be the reason why you appear to swaying on the spot like a sapling?” 

Laurent gave her a sharp look that only made her smirk wider, but then steeled himself and stood straighter. 

Here, in front of these people, he couldn’t be seen to be anything other than unbending steel. And so, steel he would be.

“It is hot in here.” he said flatly, and crossed over to the head table, leaving Vannes behind. Damen and Nikandros were speaking a strange, halted version of Akeilon to two generals, both of whom were almost a head taller than Damen. They were  _ enormous _ , and carried on their belts strange weapons that curved in long spines, and had a handle in the centre. 

Damen caught his eye, and gave him a warm smile of genuine delighted greeting.

Just that was a balm enough to soothe at least a little of Laurent’s aching head. 

“Laurent! Come- this is Bellerophon and Helliades. They are the war chieftains of the Southern badland clans.” Damen then turned to the two enormous men and introduced Laurent to them. He recognised the words, but neither their order nor syntax. 

Both men bowed in exact unison, but one smiled at Laurent a little too openly, displaying that his teeth were in fact entirely gold. 

Laurent recognised the leer with tired familiarity; he’d been the recipient of it all his life. 

“The one with gold teeth will try to talk me into fucking him. I’d appreciate it if you steered him elsewhere.” Laurent said in Veretian, inclined his head graciously for appearances sake, and then went back to his seat. 

Behind him, Nikandros was choking on his wine. 

Laurent motioned to the nearest serving boy, who filled Laurent’s glass with lemon water,  _ not _ wine. He swallowed about half of it in one go, and then motioned the boy to simply leave the jug. 

“Was that  _ really  _ necessary, Laurent?” Damen said, sitting heavily in his seat next to him. The two giant men were walking away now.

“I was simply stating a fact.” Laurent replied, lifting a small section of lemon from his drink and flicking it across the table in idle.

“They command over two thousand mounted soldiers, all of whom are as large as those two are.” Damen leaned in, and Laurent ignored the little thrill that shot through him when he felt Damen’s lip brush his ear just so, “And if I took issue with everyone who thought you beautiful,” he said, voice just barely above inaudible, “I’d never rest a moment.” 

“Not to mention that either of those two would run you through with no difficulty.” Nikandros added, sitting in his chair beside Damen. 

Damen scoffed at this. “Perhaps if it were both at once. One on one would be no contest.”

Nikandros smirked into his wine but didn’t respond. Laurent rolled his eyes. 

The festivities continued, as did Laurent’s headache. The oxen was cut up and handed around, the wine flowed freely and the laughter and exuberant shouting grew steadily higher and higher in volume. 

Akeilon noble after Akeilon noble came up and introduced themselves to Damen, most staring at Laurent with various combinations of terror and curiosity. Damen, as ever, was gracious and kind and unendingly charismatic. People who’d never met him before turned away irrevocably charmed, and Laurent found himself trying not to be too jealous.

Damen had a way with people that he never would.

“The people love you.” Laurent said quietly, his chin resting on his hand. He watched as a smiling nobleman bowed himself away backwards, almost tripping over a stone lion. 

“And they will soon love you. Veretians love you already, and Akeilons will follow.”

Laurent watched as a middle aged woman approached the table, followed by three young women. All were in flowing, loose fitting gowns that nonetheless were able to show off the precise shapes of their bodies beneath. They were also all extremely beautiful, and blushed when they looked upon their king.

“King Damianos. How well you look this evening.” the older woman said, dipping at the knees and inclining her head. 

“Not nearly as well as you, Andromache. It’s been far too long since I’ve seen you or your family.” Damen took her hand and pressed a kiss to her knuckles, “May I introduce Laurent of Vere.” He directed her to his right. 

Andromache repeated her bowed greeting to Laurent, and looked back to Damen. 

“There was a time when your father and I were trying to arrange a match between you and one of my girls.” she said, and behind her the three beautiful women smiled shyly, “But the King of Vere’s astonishing beauty has not been exaggerated.”

Laurent bowed his head in acquiescence, but his fist under the table clenched tighter. 

Without looking, Damen reached under the table and wrapped his big hand around Laurent’s and gave it a gentle squeeze. Laurent relaxed.

“It was good to see you again, Andromache, and your girls. Enjoy the festival.”

As they departed, Nikandros put down his wine chalice with a thud. 

“I believe I’ve heard enough about Laurent’s astonishing beauty for one evening, if I may be so bold. I think I’m going to retire.”

Laurent sagged with relief. 

“I think I will do likewise. Damianos; I trust you will have no issues preventing the entire nation falling to pieces around us should I leave you on your own?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I could probably start a good war or two if I truly wished to.”

Laurent smirked and bent to press a chaste, quick kiss to Damen’s temple. He knew they were being watched by countless sets of eyes, some friendly and many not, and appearances were paramount. 

The particular set of eyes Laurent caught only briefly as he glanced around, however,  made his lips twist into a dissatisfied mue.

“That large brute friend of yours is watching me like a rutting stallion might an in-season mare.” he said in quick, clipped Veretian, “I’d appreciate it if you headed off his attempt to follow me.”

Damen raised an eyebrow, but looked over to where one of the huge, leering men was indeed cutting across the atrium towards the main exit, as though in an attempt to head Laurent off. 

Laurent watched  Damen’s nose and upper lip twitch with distaste. 

“Stay with Nik. I’ll speak with the chieftain.” he got to his feet and adjusted his sword belt,  twisting it around his rock solid waist, then seemed to pause. He reached out and grabbed Laurent by the elbow, and planted a firm, deep kiss on his unprotesting lips. He withdrew barely a hairsbreadth away, and said quietly “I’ll see you later.”

Laurent couldn’t help the smile that slipped across his face, but he quickly tempered it. In a few long strides, he caught up with Nikandros, who was shuffling awkwardly through the crowd and using his shoulders and polite shoving to make headway.

Around Laurent, the crowd parted neatly. 

“Walk me to my chambers?” he said.

Nik blinked, and then shrugged and nodded. 

“Jord off this evening, then?” he mumbled, stepping through the huge heavy wood doors, which were carved with ancient battle scenes and inlaid with gold.

“I gave him the evening and the night. I felt as though no gruesome and bloody assassinations were  _ direly  _ imminent.”

Nikandros made a humming noise that could have been agreement. 

“And were the worst to truly come to pass, I’m of the opinion that Damianos would make a staunch defender and bodyguard.”

Laurent had expected a chuckle, or perhaps begrudging agreement. He hadn’t expected Nikandros to frown deeply.

“He is the bloodline king of the oldest nation on the continent. It is not his duty to be your bodyguard.” Nik said, with surprising vehemence. He immediately remembered himself, however, because he glanced at Laurent and dipped his head. “My apologies, your Highness. I spoke out of turn.”

Laurent sighed inwardly, but also acknowledged his mistake. 

“No need to apologize. You are correct- he is not my bodyguard, no matter what he seems to like to fashion himself as these days. I misspoke.”

Nikandros visibly floundered at Laurent’s easy acquiescence, but recovered admirably. 

“How are you doing with the newest puzzle I gave you? Well?”

Laurent, who had spent an hour before dinner procrastinating putting on his heavy, painful jacket and toying fruitlessly with the little wood pyramid, massaged his aching temple briefly.

“It has...as of yet….escaped me.” he admitted begrudgingly. 

Nik grinned at this, in a surprisingly open manner Laurent had only seen him use when speaking with Damen or Pallas, or other Akeilons he knew well. 

“The sun addle your mind? I know you are suffering for it- your nose and ears are pink as maiden’s nipples.” Nikandros blanched when he realized what he’d said, because he hastily corrected himself. “Er. Sorry. Your face is quite...burnt from the sun. Was what I meant.”

“Quite.” Laurent said, resuming walking again. He hid his amusement by looking out the open archways they were going past.

They strode in silence for a few moments, before Laurent said, in perhaps a more petulant tone than he’d intended, “But does it have to  _ sting _ so?”

Nikandros snickered. “That is the way of a sunburn, particularly on one so fair as you. It will sting and ache, and then itch and peel away.”

“Superb.” Laurent said dryly.

“There is a plant that would help you. If you ask a servant, they will fetch you a small, fleshy plant that has a soothing gel inside it.”

“A...plant?”

 

 

Later in the evening, Damen returned from the feast, yawning hugely and lazily ruffling his curls. He closed the door to his and Laurent’s solar, and entered the bedroom chamber. 

He blinked. 

Standing by the bed, in his long white undershirt and nothing else, was Laurent. He was holding in his hands a small ceramic pot containing a little spiky plant.

“...?” Damen grunted.

“I’m trying to figure out if this sunburn remedy Nikandros told me of is a friendly gesture or in fact a cruel joke.” Laurent tapped the end of one of the sharp spikes with a finger, and frowned at it. 

“Oh. No- see here.” Damen came closer and tore off a whole spike, the wet flesh snapping apart like cucumber. He held up the wide broken end, already dripping clear gel. “It soothes and makes the sting less severe. Paschal uses it often.”

Laurent gave the plant in Damen’s hand a long, baleful look, then put the pot down on a nearby table. He turned slowly, back to Damen, and with one hand reached up and pulled the white shirt off over his head. The pink-red skin on his shoulders and neck glowed in the lamplight.

“Well?” he said, casting a sly smile back over his shoulder, “Attend me.”

Damen grinned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Laurent sounds like my riding coach during my lessons lol


	3. A Shrike; A Thorn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Laurent and Damen have some alone time. Laurent and Nikandros have a duel. Laurent makes a friend.

Laurent, as he had always done since...well, since his brother’s death anyway, awoke all at once. He didn’t allow himself the long, leisurely ‘coming-to-terms’ that Damen indulged in, but rather went from asleep to fully conscious in a matter of moments. 

He did nothing by degrees.

Laurent opened his eyes. The warm breeze was rustling the canopy over the bed unobtrusively, and the sounds of early morning city activity were muffled and muted in the high royal chambers. 

Laurent sighed deeply, and felt the weight of a heavy arm loosely cast across his waist. He smiled to himself and rolled his head to the side, looking at his sleeping companion, whose shoulders when he slept on his side made a veritable mountain under the white sheets. Just seeing his untroubled, slack face was enough to make Laurent smile hugely to himself.

Damianos slept like a gigantic cat- strewn in a muscular and haphazard fashion across the bed. When he joined him, Laurent was always snagged by a massive paw and drawn into the very heart of him, nuzzled and huffed on until he inevitably dozed off. They never awoke in the same fashion they’d fallen asleep in; while Laurent moved not at all in sleep, Damen snuggled and shoved and grumbled and readjusted. Where Laurent was a light sleeper, Damen slept like a toddler after a long day playing outdoors. 

Lifting one hand, Laurent carded the tousled, ridiculous curls over Damen’s forehead, admiring how they sprang back from between his fingers; black through white. The rest of Damen’s hair was a riot of flips and twists, and would take a bucket of water to sort out. While their hair wasn’t all that dissimilar in length, Laurent’s was almost completely straight, and easily tamed with a wet comb. Damen’s….was not. 

Laurent shifted and rolled until he was facing Damen on his side, his face about 8 inches away. He settled under the weight of Damen’s arm, and he allowed himself to just...look.

In sleep, Damen always looked young. He  _ was  _ young, of course, but he didn’t look like a king, or even a warrior. He just looked like a young man. A beautiful, unashamedly bleeding-hearted young man...with a soft spot for Veretian snakes.

Laurent smirked and lifted one pale finger, touching just the edge of Damen’s bottom lip, feeling the delicacy of the skin and smooth texture. 

He didn’t let himself do this very often. It was compromising, to be so outwardly fascinated...so clearly smitten. It was  _ embarrassing _ , how stupidly in love Laurent was. Truly- had he seen it someone else to this degree, he would have recommended a sanitorium. 

Laurent let his finger hover upwards to Damen’s nose, to the little scar and bump across the bridge. Had he broken it? In a fight, perhaps? A sword butt, a fist, an errant shield or bit of armor? Laurent didn’t know, and for some reason that rankled him. 

He should know. He was  _ supposed to know. _

He let himself get distracted by Damianos’ ridiculous lashes, fanned and black and thick and lovely. Laurent indulged and leaned closer, brushing the tips of them with his finger. Damen’s eyes twitched but remained closed. 

Laurent bit his lip to keep himself from laughing when Damen sighed heavily in his sleep, as though the weight of the world were on his slumbering shoulders.

He watched as Damen’s lips twitched a bit, flexing and relaxing. 

He wondered...could he...kiss him while he was asleep? 

Laurent ignored the nervous kick in his belly, swallowed the fear of some unknown judgement. He was allowed to have this. He was  _ allowed _ , goddamn it. 

Leaning in at a glacial pace, he tilted his head and was careful not to bump their noses. Holding his breath just so, he kept his eyes open to make sure Damen didn’t awaken.

Then, in a touch so delicate and slight it could have been the mere passing of a shadow, he let their lips brush, just a little. 

Vindicated, Laurent withdrew, heart beating in wild delight. He rolled away, his back to Damen, and grinned into his own hands. 

“Am I allowed to tell you how cute that was?” 

Laurent almost fell out of bed in surprise at the sound of Damen’s fully lucid voice.

“ _ You were awake?!”  _ Laurent hissed, recovering from his start.

“For quite some time, yes. I was simply enjoying laying in bed, and then, would you imagine it, I feel the sweetest and softest of touches all over my face.” Damen shifted and was laying on his back and grinning, his honey and jasper eyes bright and very much awake. “And just when I thought it was over...the gentlest of kisses.”

Laurent snarled at him and went to smack him with a convenient throw pillow, but his thrashing was quickly arrested when he was yanked down and pulled by his arms until he was laying on top of Damen, hands tightly restrained.

“Rude.” Laurent said, frowning down at Damen. 

Damen, for his part, grinned and rolled them until they were reversed. 

“Do I get another kiss? I held very still.”

“Barbarian.” Laurent replied. 

Damen kissed him, deep and sweet and earnest, and Laurent’s angry facade floated away like a butterfly in a breeze. He let his lips be devoured, his tongue slip out and meet Damen’s, and sighed into the kiss as his own desire crept up his chest and flared hot in his cheeks. 

Laurent mewled in insincere, petulant complaint when he tried to pull his hands away, and Damen relinquished them. As he always did.

If Laurent pulled, Damen always let go. 

His hands now free, Laurent wound his fingers up and into Damen’s hair, making it even more wild, and tugged the curls back away from Damen’s face, throwing that stupefying, ludicrously handsome bone structure into sharp relief.

Laurent lifted Damen’s face, smirking.

“All those marble busts of Akeilon kings and heroes...you really do look like them.”

“Hmm.” Damen said, raising one eyebrow, “As if I were related to them or something.”

Laurent drew him back in, kissing his plush lips and pulling Damen down onto him, with his knees up besides his hips. They were completely nude, and Laurent could feel Damen’s arousal buried against his own. 

Damen could apparently feel it as well, because he rolled his hips and groaned. His mouth left Laurent’s, dipping down to leave hot, soaking wet kisses along his throat. 

Laurent loosened his fingers from Damen’s curls but still clutched his face to him, eyes slipping closed as an infernally warm mouth sucked bruises onto his pulse point and collarbones, tingling and tickling on the sunburned skin. 

Damen shifted down Laurent’s body, the deep groove down the centre of his abdominal muscles slipping over Laurent’s cock. It was  _ maddening _ .

“D-Damen.” Laurent said, voice breathy. 

Damen hummed and laved his tongue over one of Laurent’s nipples, making it impossible for Laurent not to look back down and watch his progress.

Damen grinned at the renewed attention and nibbled a trail across to the other nipple, sucking on it and raking his teeth until it peaked and he lapped at it again. 

Laurent pulled Damen’s hair, but not away,  _ gods, not away.  _ He wanted so much more.

Damen seemed to have decided he’d let Laurent’s red, swollen nipples be, because he was pressing soft, sweet kisses to the hard flat plane of the centre of Laurent’s ribs, wandering lower and lower until he reached the soft, pitching plains of his belly, which was taught and rolling like the sea in his desperate gasping. 

Laurent felt Damen’s tongue wiggle into the crease of his own abdominal muscles, and he decided that perhaps, considering it was just the two of them, he wasn’t above begging after all. 

“Please, Damen...” he said breathlessly, his fingernails gouging Damen’s scalp and the back of his neck.

Damen lifted his head and met Laurent’s eyes, grinning. 

“I’m loving you like you deserve to be loved.” he replied simply. He lifted one hand and smoothed it over the brightly flushing plane of Laurent’s chest. His fingers, when pressed in, left pale furrows across his skin that closed in behind with bright blushing pink.

The hand then went down and grabbed a handful of the flesh of Laurent’s ass, squeezing liberally.

Damen dipped his head back in and pressed his tongue into Laurent’s bellybutton, and Laurent’s back bowed up from the bed. The tongue  _ twisted,  _ in a manner so lewd and frankly quite familiar to Laurent (but usually in  _ other places _ ) that he bit his lip and had to contain a frustrated scream. 

Damen chuckled in his throat and nipped with his front teeth at the soft skin just below his navel. Laurent hissed. 

He kicked at Damen not entirely gently and snarled down at him. 

“Suck my cock already, Damianos, or I shall remove yours.”

Damen grinned and wiped excess spit off his mouth with the back of his hand. 

“Ah, there he is. I was wondering how long it would be before you showed up.”

Laurent swallowed his nasty retort when Damen dipped his head and licked delicately at the very tip of Laurent’s straining cock, his eyes never breaking contact with Laurent’s as he did so. 

Laurent let his head flop back against his pillow, and let out a long sigh, fingers cinching tighter on Damen’s hair. 

To say Damen was good with his mouth would have been a grave understatement. He was liberal with his tongue, and varied between sucking and licking with long, hot strokes, the tip of his tongue caressing the tip and darting into the slit in random patterns that made Laurent bite his lower lip and try in vain to swallow his cries of pleasure and delighted frustration. 

There was a time that losing himself in Damen’s mouth took care and patience on Damen’s part, and concentration on Laurent’s. Now, however, it was easy. 

Thing were easy between them, and this was no different. 

Damen swallowed him deeper into his mouth, his throat tight around the end of Laurent’s cock, and he hummed when Laurent thrust deeper in with an involuntary jerk of his hips, his gag reflex carefully and impressively controlled. 

“ _ Ah, Damen _ …” Was all Laurent could say, back arching and chest heaving as Damen withdrew and suckled at the very tip.

Laurent ‘s mouth fell open as he came, eyes screwed shut in ecstasy, his fingers in tight, shaking fists in Damen’s hair. He could feel Damen’s lips holding him inside, swallowing his release, milking every second of pleasure from Laurent that he could. 

Damen also did nothing by degrees.

Laurent panted in the early morning air, his eyes springing open. The canopy overhead, diaphanous and bright, seemed to glow in the slanted light of the sunrise.

He lifted his head, and watched enraptured as Damen drew out his tongue to lap at some of Laurent’s release that had escaped his lips.

What truly arrested Laurent was not that. It wasn’t his eyes, wide and blown black with arousal, or the sweet dimple that formed in his cheek when he smiled up at Laurent in delight. It wasn’t the little crease that crossed his jaw and chin, from where he’d slept on a fold of the fabric of the cushions.

It was all of it, rolled into an outpouring of adoration, that made Laurent stare.

He pinioned forward, grasping Damen by the face and drawing him urgently up to kiss him, and upwards to lay alongside him. Eager and still fully roused, Damen wrapped his arms around Laurent’s body, hands rough with calluses and so very gentle.

Laurent snaked his own hand down, the other clutching Damen’s face to his, and grasped Damen’s cock, hot and hard and urgent, feeling his whole body lurch against him as he did so. 

“I won’t,  _ ah _ , I won’t be long.” Damen panted, his forehead pressed to Laurent’s and his eyes screwed shut.

“It’s alright.” Laurent said, and tilted his face against him. His eyes were open, watching Damen’s face contort in glorious agony. “I have you, Damianos.” he whispered, voice barely audible, lips brushing Damen’s as he spoke. 

Damen groaned, full bodied and pained, and kissed Laurent deeply, holding him as a drowning man might a raft. Laurent delicately rolled his wrist, slipping the foreskin back and swiping with his thumb across the weeping tip. He drew his hand along Damen’s length, motions controlled and slow. The skin of Damen’s cock was silky and unbelievably warm against his palm.

“Come, Damen.” he said quietly. It wasn’t an order or a taunt- Laurent couldn’t help but be honestly sincere in his desire in that moment. 

Damen gasped and complied, aborted thrusts sliding slickly through Laurent’s fingers as he emptied himself onto their bellies. 

As his massive body clung to Laurent, muscles fraught with waves of tension and release, always he held Laurent as gentle as he might a bloomed flower.

Damen collapsed onto him, careful even then, his face buried in Laurent’s neck  and his breath damp and fast.

“I love you, Laurent.” he said, body heaving with exertion, “Gods, but I do.” 

He lifted his head and cradled Laurent’s face between his hands, and he pressed their noses together.

Laurent would have perhaps, on another occasion, commented on the ludicrous sincerity of Damen’s words, or the overripe sweetness of their sentiment.

But at that moment, he only knew his own loud and welcome echoes. With their chests pressed together, it felt almost as if their hearts had reached out between the bars of their cages and held one another.

“And I love you.” he replied, his voice close and quiet. He returned his fingers to Damen’s wild hair, “But of course, you know this.”

Damen grinned down at him. 

“Mm.” he hummed, “Yes, I know it.”

 

↭↭↭

 

Nikandros  _ almost  _ escaped the palace without being cornered.

He’d awoken early, bathed, dressed and eaten before any nobles or members of the court were about. He’d hoped to get to the sparring ring and run some drills for himself, perhaps survey the competition in the stables and corrals, get an idea of the horseflesh in abundance. 

He was only halfway the length of the entrance hall away from the great doors, the morning air beckoning him, when he heard it. 

“Kyros. A word.”

Nik stopped dead in his tracks, and his eyes closed momentarily. He took a centreing breath, then pivoted on his toes, all smiles. 

“Good morning, Your Highness.”

Laurent detached himself from the small alcove, where he’d been innocently standing behind a marble statue, cloaked in a partial shadow.

The statue was of Pythion, the ancient Akeilon god of youthful male beauty. 

The irony was not lost on Nikandros. 

Laurent was dressed entirely in black, the fabric simultaneously matte and iridescent in a manner than seemed to absorb all light around it.Only occasional hints of silver in the cuffs and lacing showed where seams were sewn.

He walked like a jaguar along a log, approaching Nikandros with the surety of one who was born to royalty. 

He held out his hand, palm down in a light fist, and gave a strange smile.

Nik slowly raised a hand, and blinked when the little wooden pyramid was dropped into his palm.

“You...solved it, then?” he said.

Laurent withdrew his outstretched hand and placed it behind his back to clasp with the other.

“Indeed. They key was to think first in reverse, and then the reverse of that reverse.”

Nikandros mulled this over.

“The reverse of the reverse...meaning...forwards?”

“You would imagine so, would you not? But alas; it was not the case.”

Nikandros couldn’t help but chuckle at this.

Damen had told him once that Laurent was funny. Of course, later that same day in council,  Laurent had declared Nikandros an incompetent leader,  imbecilic man of ill repute and in possession of ‘cock like a boywhore’s smallest finger’. Perhaps the sense of hilarity was lost at the time. 

In retrospect, Nikandros reflected, ‘cock like a boywhore’s smallest finger’ was funny. Crude and ribald in the extreme, but funny nonetheless. What was it had Lazar said? ‘It’s the face that does it; no one expects a face that beautiful, with a mouth that pretty, to spew poison so filthy. At first it comes as a shock, but then becomes entertaining.’

“Where are you off to so early?” Laurent asked. Said beautiful face was showing nothing but polite curiosity, which made Nikandros nervous. 

“Drills. I can’t...even during a festival, I keep myself to my regimen. Habits from serving at the Kingsmeet die hard.”

Laurent tilted his head, considering him with those enormous blue eyes.

Nikandros felt like a lizard cornered by a cat, pinned down by the tail.

“I will join you, I think. Damianos elected to stay in bed, and I find myself in need of exercise.”

Nikandros gave him a long look.

Laurent slowly smirked. 

“And we shall say nothing about staying in bed for said exercise.”

 

 

The walk to the palace training yard was short, but made longer by the silence between them. Laurent said nothing, and simply strode along on long, black clad legs. 

Nikandros knew better than to fill the silence; he’d seen the Veretian king use this tactic before to devastating effect.

“Quiet, aren’t we?” Laurent said, looking out over the city as they descended from the hill of the palace. He both looked and sounded uninterested. 

“You are waiting for me to fill the silence and tell you something I otherwise might not. I’ve seen you do it before, and I have no desire to fall into the same trap.”

“So the faithful hound finally is wise to the tricks of the pet snake. I’m sure there is a heavy handed allegory to be found somewhere.”

Nik rolled his eyes. 

The training yard was full of soldiers, all of whom immediately stopped sparring when Laurent came into view. Many Akeilons seemed uncertain how to receive a Veretian King, but followed suit when the Veretian soldiers around them inclined their heads deeply and sheathed their weapons. 

Lazar, who was nearby, approached them and bowed again.

“Good morning, Your Highness. Nikandros.”

“We would have the ring cleared, if you could-” Nikandros began in Veretian.

“No.” Laurent said simply, “They can stay, I care not.”

Lazar grinned lopsidedly at Nikandros, in a manner that plainly said ‘See?’

Nik ignored him. 

Laurent approached the weapons rack, eyeing the array of various shortswords, broadswords, hand-and-a-halfs and longswords. Around him, the majority of the soldiers had warily retreated to the edges of the ring, opting not to continue sparring. Many, however, seemed far too curious to actually leave.

When Laurent turned around, he was quickly and efficiently unlacing the thick black coat from the top of his throat down, the lacing hidden under the fabric this time. His fingers were nimble and fast, darting about as they pulled out the lacing, then doing the same to the ties at his wrists. The long silver strands trailed like pieces of a grey horse’s tail.

As he set his sword belt aside and rolled his shoulders, Nikandros was reminded of the conversation he’d had with Damen, many months ago in the early days of his kingship.

“Their clothing seems infernally difficult. It must take ages should they wish to bed anyone.” Nik had said.

Damen laughed and replied “The trick is to keep it all hidden away until the last moment. Delayed gratification.”

Nikandros snorted derisively. “Not something I ever thought I’d hear you say. I distinctly remember you remarking to me several years ago when you were keen on that archer from Isthima, that it was lucky he wore only a short chiton as you wouldn’t have to waste time when bending him over the nearest fence.”

Damen had given him a knowing look. “The greatest treasures lay in the most convoluted of labyrinths, old friend.”

“They also famously contain man-eating minotaurs.” Nik had replied, with a meaningful look in Laurent’s direction.

Damen had laughed and laughed.

 

For the second time in as many days, Laurent was in the loose fitting white shirt he wore beneath his ridiculous clothing, his pale snowy skin on display for all to see.

In truth, it wasn’t quite so pale and snowy as it had been the day before: it was still tinged pink from sun and Nikandros couldn’t help but notice the little purple suck mark on one of his clavicles.

He knew better than to mention it.

Laurent had selected two identical broadswords, and with a simple flourish, tossed one to Nikandros, who caught it easily.

“You are aware that I served in the Kingsmeet for two years. And that they only select the very best of the best.” Nik said, examining the blade and testing its weight, watching as Laurent did likewise.

“The best of the best would be Damianos, who was of course unable to join the Kingsmeet on account of being the future king.” Laurent replied.

“Perhaps. Of course, he and I were taught by the same swordmaster. And when he was in schooling at the palace, learning useless skills like war histories and politics-”

“Not to mention Veretian language.” Laurent added.

Nikandros snorted but continued, “Learning  _ useless _ skills, I was here, practicing.”

Laurent approached him from across the ring, as poised and beautiful as the statue of Pythion.

“Ah but you forget, Nikandros, the most important element of all.” He lifted the blade and set it against Nik’s, in the manner to begin an engagement, “Natural talent.”

Nikandros barely had a second before he was parrying a wicked and evilly aimed blow.

“Oh? And does Damen have that, then?” Nik shoved him away and followed with a similar darting strike, which Laurent turned away with casual ease.

They were testing each other.

“Not for me to say. I know for certain, however that my brother did. And Damianos killed him.” Laurent attacked again, faster and nastier, cold blue eyes sharp and terrifying.

They sparred for the better part of an hour, and attracted quite a crowd, both of soldiers and passing civilians.

By the time they were finished, the sun was hot and both of them were sweating profusely. Where Nikandros has simply allowed his chiton to drop off his shoulder and go bare on his upper body, Laurent didn’t remove his white shirt, and it clung to him damply.

Laurent did not, as Nik had expected, speak much during the actual fighting. He instead wore a face of grim determination, concentrating on each and every tiny moment. His footwork, balance and precision was awe inspiring, meticulous training evident in every move.

Laurent won the first bout, then Nikandros the next two. The fourth went for longest, almost half an hour, before Nikandros fumbled and Laurent caught him in the hollow at the base of the throat.

“Yield.” he’d panted, chest rising and falling rapidly beneath his shirt, blonde hair falling in damp strands over his eyes.

Nikandros snarled and swore in Akeilon, making Laurent smirk.

At the border of the ring, from where he was perched on a fence, Lazar hooted and made a rude gesture.

They were most of the way through their fifth bout when it became clear that Laurent was tiring. His speed was still incredible, but there was no arguing with facts; Nikandros was taller and stronger, and the effort it took to match him was slowly wearing Laurent down.

“Yield now and I’ll count it as a draw.” Nik said, advancing and driving Laurent back.

Laurent ignored him, face flushing brightly with effort. He shoved back, feet gouging deep furrows in the light shavings and dirt.

Nikandros could see it coming, four moves ahead. He could feel Laurent’s arms shake with exhaustion as their swords screamed along one another, feel the glancing blow where it should have been solid.

With a twist of his wrist and hard flick, Laurent’s sword went flying from his hand and staked the dirt four paces away. Nik let his tired arms go slack to his sides, gasping for breath.

Nik grinned and opened his mouth to declare ultimate victory, only to have his voice stolen when he was kicked squarely in the solar plexus and sent over backwards. His fighter’s instinct was to ignore the spasming pain and get his sword back up, but before he could move, his wrist was being delicately stepped on. Laurent was looking down at him, a small and wicked looking stiletto knife in his hand.

Sweat trickled down his cheek as he dropped one knee onto Nikandros’ chest, and Laurent pressed the tip of the knife to the rise of his trachea.  


“Yield.” he said.

“You cheated.” Nikandros hissed, chest heaving.

“Matter of perspective: I won.” 

Loud and slow applause from one pair of hands broke out from the side of the ring, and both Laurent and Nik looked over.

Damen was standing under a shadowy awning. And he was clapping.

“Good fight.” he said, smiling with all his white teeth.

Nikandros grumbled and struggled to his feet as soon as Laurent was off him, glaring at Damen. 

“A good fight generally ends with fair and clear victory.” Nik said, brushing dirt off his sweat covered arms.

“You’re right. He beat you, fair and clear.” Damen strode across the training ground, long red cape pulling a draft of shavings along the ground behind him.

“In the  _ Veretian _ sense of the words, certainly.” 

“As I said; a matter of perspective.” Laurent plucked his sword from where it was still shoved into the earth. The stiletto knife seemed to have disappeared about his person yet again.

Nik bristled and snapped back. “Just as those marks on your throat are a matter of perspective, I’m sure.”

Laurent went still and his head whipped around to glare, narrow eyed, at Nikandros. Damen, eyebrows raising, dipped his head to look at Laurent’s neck, and then chuckled in a self-satisfied manner.

“No, those are more clear cut, I think.” 

Laurent ignored them both and collected his coat, shrugging it on roughly. The marks disappeared.

“I’m in need of a bath.” he said, addressing Damen and entirely ignoring Nikandros.

Damen brushed a hand through Laurent’s sweaty hair and hummed.

“Yes. You are.” his eyes wandered Laurent’s face for a moment, absorbed with what he saw there, be it nothing or everything, then he seemed to come back to himself. “But quickly- there is an event this morning I know you will like. And Nik- you will join us.”

Nikandros sighed resignedly.

“Yes, Exalted.” 

Damen and Nikandros strode side by side back to the castle, Laurent and Lazar walking a few strides ahead and apparently discussing the superiority of Veretian steel.

Nikandros was just righting his chiton about his shoulders when Damen leaned in slightly.

“You had him dead to rights, by the way. You got him tired and he cheated.” Damen laughed quietly, “It’s for the best; he’s a very sore loser.”

Nikandros glared at him. 

“ _ You said-”  _ he began.

Damen grinned at him and his eyes twinkled naughtily.

“Oh, you bastard” Nikandros groaned, eyes rolling heavenward, “Playing both sides. You’ve spent too much time in Vere.”

“Well, I am a king now. I must exercise diplomacy to keep my people happy.”

“To get your cock sucked, you mean.” Nik muttered darkly.

“Well yes, that too.” Damen clapped an arm around his shoulder, and Nik couldn’t help but grin.

Just like when they were boys, Damen’s smile was infectious.

 

 

↭↭↭

 

The children’s steeplechase was a time honored tradition. It was one of the oldest events at the Hippophoria, and was the most widely participated in, anticipated and watched of the whole festival.

It was also hilarious in the absolute extreme. 

Children from all over the country would come with their ponies, having practiced for months...or some not at all, depending on the child or the pony.

They would line up, unescorted by parents or adults, on the start of the circuit, and then at the drop of the flag, gallop around the circular track, jumping piles of brush and wood boxes, for ten laps. 

Of the forty or so ponies that started, usually only about ten finished, with or without riders. Most ponies ended up grazing, with the child sitting on them and screaming in fury, laying down and rolling the child off, jumping out of the ring and escaping, and many just bucking like little fiends until the child went flying, and then stood patiently awaiting an adult to come collect them. 

Damen and Nikandros had both competed in it as children between the ages of about seven and ten. Most memorably, Damen had pushed Nik off his pony the first year they rode, and so in repayment the next year, Nikandros pushed Damen off, and was summarily reamed out by his father for pushing the crown prince off his pony. They rode fairly after that.

The event was not to begin for a while yet, and so when the two kings -followed at a distance by Nikandros and Lazar- arrived, the infield of the circuit was populated with many children and their ponies, as well as parents and grooms, servants and enthused onlookers.

“I didn’t get to see this last year. The king was in Arles, so I missed it.” Lazar said, looking around with the definite appearance of someone excited to watch small children yell at terribly behaved ponies.

Nikandros, who remembered very well that Laurent had been absent last year at this time, as marked by the amount of time Damen had spent staring off into space and sighing forlornly, grimaced.

“Yes. I remember.”  he replied in Veretian.

Laurent and Damen had stopped at the edge of the field, and Nikandros saw surprise in Laurent’s eyes as Damen leaned in and apparently briefly described the event to him.

“It seems...needlessly dangerous.” Laurent eventually said, frowning.

“Not  _ so  _ dangerous...as long as no one pushes anybody else off.” Damen said, and flashed Nikandros a grin over Laurent’s head. Nik rolled his eyes but smiled despite himself.

Laurent was still frowning, the expression doing nothing to make his face any less beautiful. No expression ever did, really. But then Damen leaned in and whispered something in Laurent’s ear, nose brushing against blonde hair. Laurent seemed to soften, and he even flushed slightly across his cheeks. He gave Damen a direct look without malice, and smiled wryly.

“While you do that,” Damen said, apparently in addendum to whatever he’d said to Laurent, “I’m going to go ask the horsemaster from Karthas about one of his stallions. Lazar, come with me; Nik, you stay.”

Nikandros raised an eyebrow but watched as Damen and Lazar wound their way through the throng, disappearing from view quickly except for brief snatches of the King’s red cloak.

Laurent, who was still looking out over the infield with his arms crossed delicately, said mildly “I feel as though I am being badly set up and courted. He keeps finding methods to leave us alone together. We are lucky this is not Vere, or the court would be all a titter.”

“Damianos has the subtlety of a battleaxe. Always has.” Nik replied darkly.

Laurent actually laughed out loud, which made Nikandros almost jerk with surprise. It wasn’t often anyone heard the King of Vere’s laughter.

“Come,” Laurent said, stepping onto the track and crossing the dusty earth in long easy strides, “I want to see these ponies.”

There were many children milling about, parents and grooms carrying tack and other equipment following behind them diligently. Ponies grazed on lines, awaiting their moment to shine with lazy good nature.

There were quite a few Veretian citizens striding amongst the crowd of Akeilons, their clothing markedly more complicated and skin far paler, and so Laurent stood out much less than he might have. It was clear that while some of the people who had come to spectate knew who he was and bowed out of his way, many did not. Nikandros watched as a large man with a full beard carrying a bucket of water sloshed past Laurent with nary a glance, grumbling ‘s’cuse me’ as he did so. Laurent stepped neatly aside and let him through, then continued on unphased. 

They came to a line of children brushing their ponies, some of them braiding manes with bits of coloured cloth and beads. A nervous looking servant was polishing a saddle.

Nikandros watched as Laurent examined the line of horses and children, none of whom took notice of the two adults standing nearby.

“Is this your pony?” Laurent asked a little girl, who was using a wood comb to brush her white pony’s forelock. She was standing on a upturned bucket.

She gave Laurent a long and baleful look, before nodding.

“Yes.” she said gravely.

“He is quite handsome. Is he very fast?” 

“His name is Kefkos. And he is the fastest.” she told him. She seemed satisfied with her combing job, because she hopped down off the bucket and moved it over to Kefkos’ side so she could comb his mane. 

“Are you riding him in the steeplechase?” Laurent asked her, approaching cautiously and patting the pony on the forehead. Kefkos was asleep, and didn’t seem to notice the newcomer.

“Yes. I have been practicing on our circuit at home. If I win, I get to meet the king and he will give me a gold coin.” She began to comb ferociously at the fluffy white mane.

Laurent smiled widely, his blue eyes bright. Nikandros realized he’d never seen him look as sincere and open as he did in that moment, or as non-threatening. It was disarming in the extreme.

“Is that what you get when you win?” Laurent asked, one blonde eyebrow up.

The girl gave him a strange look.

“That’s what you always win. Don’t you know that?” she gave him a longer look, taking in his clothing and blonde hair, “You’re Veretian. Do you not have steeplechase there?”

“Well, yes, we  _ do _ , but not for children.” Laurent said.

The girl frowned. “Well that’s stupid. I’m glad I don’t live in Vere.”

Laurent laughed quietly and rubbed at Kefkos’ little white ear.

“In Vere, we have children’s riding patterns. Everyone has to do the same pattern, and whomever does it best wins a ribbon.”

The girl frowned. “This is much more fun.”

“Yes, you’re probably right.” Laurent said.

The girl continued to comb, tugging at the hair until it came untangled. It stood straight up when it was.

She was looking at Laurent again, as if deciding something.

“You are dressed very fancy. Do you live in a castle?” she asked.

Laurent seemed to ponder this. “I guess you could say that I do. I live in many castles, here and in Vere.”

“Have you ever met the king?” she blurted, looking suddenly excited.

“I have.” Laurent said. He was neither condescending nor patronising, just honest and kind.

Nikandros tried not to be too suspicious.

“What is he like? Is he very handsome? My sister Kyta says he is very handsome and she would like to ‘grab a handful’ of him.” she paused and then said mildly, “But also that I shouldn’t tell people that.”

Nikandros grimaced, but Laurent only laughed. He leaned in and spoke to her in mock conspiratorial tones.

“Oh yes, very handsome. The most handsome in all of Akeilos.”

The girl grinned. “I knew it.” 

Laurent appeared to consider her for a moment, and then walked around and gave the pony’s rump a theatrical once over.

“Your pony’s tail...are you going to braid it as well?” he asked her.

She shook her head. “I don’t know how to braid it.”

Nikandros watched as Laurent lifted his right arm and swiftly untied one of his wrist laces, the silver threading of which was worth more than the income of most families in a year. He tugged it through the eyelets and then yanked it free. He held it up to show her, and her eyes grew comically large.

“Would it be alright if I braided this into it? I promise you I’m very good.” he told her.

She hopped off her makeshift stool and came to stand beside Laurent, looking at the trailing silver tie. She came up to around his elbow, and made him look uncharacteristically tall and broad.

Laurent proffered the lace for inspection, so she took it and eyed it critically.

“If you do a good job, I guess it’s okay.” she said doubtfully. 

Laurent inclined his head to her in acquiescence.

“What’s your name?” she asked, in that loud and direct manner many children have.

“I’m Laurent.” he told her and offered her his hand to shake, which she did with exuberant gusto, “And this is Nikandros.” he nodded at Nik, whom she glanced at and immediately disregarded.

“I’m Kaina.” she said. 

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Kaina.” Laurent replied solemnly, and then set about on the pony’s tail.

Nikandros, who was curious despite himself, approached and watched as Laurent’s fingers worked swift and tidy segments of the tail into a tight and neat braid.

“You’re wondering how a prince of Vere would learn to braid a horse tail.” he said, eyes not leaving his work. His voice was clipped somewhat because he was holding the silver lace in his teeth.

“I am, yes.” Nik replied. Kaina, who either hadn’t heard or did not care, was wiping Kefkos’ face with a damp cloth.

“I learned when I was a child, from the royal groom.”

“...why?” 

“There are few times that feel more helpless than watching your brother and father ride out to war over and over, hoping against hope that they will return in one piece. I was not allowed to join them, or check their armor, or maintain their weapons, as these were duties awarded to batmen. I was allowed, however, to groom their horses. I decided when I was about seven or so that if I could do nothing else, I would make their steeds look as though they were kings themselves, including braided and banded with gold.”

Nikandros closed his eyes and swallowed hard, the memory rising unbidden like vomit.

 

_ Surrounded on all sides by the screaming of dying men, his armor sticky and heavy with blood, sweat and mud. He drops onto his knees, wraps his arms around his prince’s body. _

_ “We must go.” Nikandros shouts over the din, pulling Damianos up onto his feet.  He feels as though he weighs a thousand pounds. _

_ He is bleeding from where the Veretian prince’s sword impaled him, like a shrike does a mouse on a thorn. _

_ Damianos is staring wide eyed at the body of the prince, at where his blonde hair lays in a puddle of reddening mud, his sightless blue eyes staring at the grey sky. In Nikandros’s arms, he is shaking with exhaustion. _

_ The Veretian prince’s guard is surging forward, screaming in grief and fury, while around Nikandros and Damianos, Akeilon soldiers flood up in response. _

_ Nikandros hears the panicked snorting, and looks up.  _

_ Through the thrashing mire he sees a riderless white horse, its dark eyes wild with terror. Braided into its mane and tail, glinting in the dull half light, are long ribbons of gold and silver. It rears and spins, and is gone. _

 

Nik looked away from Laurent then, and tried not to see him in the last place he’d seen Prince Auguste. It was difficult.

“Kaina!”

A welcome interruption appeared in the form of a young woman, carrying an armful of riding equipment. She wore a long, flowing peplos of white, the shape of her legs visible when the sun shone through the material. Her thick dark brown hair was tied in a messy braid, with many curls escaping. Her face was open and intelligent, her cheeks pinked with exercise.

She was, in a word, gorgeous.

She came to an abrupt halt when she neared them, and stared at the two men standing by the pony.

Her eyes went from Nik to Laurent, who was ignoring the situation entirely and braiding as if nothing had happened. Nikandros saw the exact moment she recognised him, and then by extension Laurent.

She fell to her knees in the grass, tack clutched tightly.

“Your highness. Kyros.” she said, head bowed.

Nikandros approached her and, for lack of anything better to do, took the saddle and bridle from her arms.

“We’re just passing through.” he said, and realized too late that is wasn’t exactly necessary for him to justify himself to a citizen he just met.

“That’s Kyta.” Kaina told Laurent, hopping own off her stool. She came around and inspected Laurent’s handiwork, hands on her hips. “You’re pretty good, I guess. For a Veretian who lives in castles.” and then she began to oil her pony’s hooves, unphased by her sister’s arrival.

Nikandros saw Kyta, the woman on the ground, gaping at her.

“It’s okay.” Nik told her hurriedly, “He...offered.”

Kyta got slowly to her feet, looking wary. Up close she was even prettier. Nikandros cleared his throat.

“Where...er...would you like this?” he asked, brandishing the tack in his arms.

Kyta finally tore her eyes off Laurent, which to Nikandros’ internal delight were narrowed in thought rather than the unbridled lust usually directed at the Veretian king. She looked at Nik and held out her arms.

“I can take it, kyros. Thank you.” She took the equipment and set it carefully on the grass by Kefkos, who was still fast asleep. She then caught her sister’s eye and beckoned her closer.

Nikandros saw all the signals of an older sibling getting ready to quietly hiss in their oblivious younger sibling’s ear. He would know: he had seven older sisters, after all. 

Before she could say anything, however, Laurent interrupted them.

“There. Finished. Care to inspect my handiwork, horsemaster Kaina?” he stepped back from the pony.

Kaina gave her sister a triumphant grin, and came to stand beside Laurent.

“It’s so pretty!” she said, face glowing as she beamed in delight. She ran her hands down the tidy narrow braid, the silver tie glinting in amongst the white hairs. “Thank you!” she said, and threw her arms around Laurent’s waist, hugging him fastly, her face planted on his stomach.

Nik blinked with his own shock, but glanced sideways when he heard Kyta gasp.

“ _ Kaina _ !” she hissed.

Laurent waved a hand at her, and grinned down at the little girl who was so happy she was practically incandescent.

“You are most welcome.” he said, and patted the wild curls on her head.

“Will you watch the race? I’m going to win.” Kaina said resolutely.

Laurent gave her a look. “Of course I’ll be watching; you think I’d do all this work just to see it go to waste?”

“I’m going to meet the king. And he will give me a gold coin.” she appeared to think for a moment, then added “I’ll let you hold it...if you want.” she said, and Nikandros couldn’t help but laugh quietly when he saw her blush slightly.

“Very well; I shall hold you to your promise. Shake my hand, so I know we have a deal.” Laurent said nobly, and held out his hand again. 

Kaina took it and shook firmly, staring up at Laurent with eyes shining full of abject hero worship.

“I will see you after the race. Goodbye, Kaina.” he said, and he bowed to her with all the grace of a seasoned dancer.

Nikandros saw Kyta’s eyes go wide.

“See?” he whispered to her, “Just fine.” 

Laurent approached them, brushing horse hair off the fine velvet of his coat. He tugged at his sleeves fastidiously, one of which was now loose without its laces.

“Well, Nikandros? Should we see where Damianos has wandered off to?” he then looked at Kyta and gave her a small, tight smile. “Your sister is very spirited, and she has a good heart. She’s a credit to you.”

Kyta swallowed, glanced at Nikandros, and then curtseyed in the fashion of one highly unused to it.

“Thank you, your Highness. I apologize if she was...impertinent or rude.”

“Nonsense. Even if she were, I would count it among her virtues, as I am impertinent and rude myself. Good day.” and with that, he strode off along the line of ponies in the direction Damen had gone.

“His highness is very...kind.” Kyta said, sounding very unsure.

“He’s not, actually. But it’s good of you to say so.” Nik muttered.

Kyta gave him a more direct look, and said “He’s not...as I would have expected the Veretian king to be. Braiding a pony’s tail, I mean.”

Nikandros considered her.

“No. I guess not.” he agreed, “But I do have to go with him, or King Damianos will have my head. Pardon me.” and he bowed away.

 

 

By the time he caught up to Laurent, they were most of the way across the infield.

“Well? Did you seal the deal then?” Laurent asked him dryly. He’d switched back to Veretian.

“Which deal is that?”

“That woman was very pretty. I’m surprised you aren’t over there right now, rutting with her in the dirt.”

Nikandros restrained himself from rolling his eyes. However benevolent he might behave in one moment, it was always important to remember Laurent’s mouth was both filthy and full of fangs.

“Just when you had me convinced for a moment that you weren’t  _ entirely  _ wicked.” Nikandros replied.

It was Laurent’s turn to roll his eyes, which he didn’t bother to try restrain.

“What were you expecting, precisely? That I have the girl flogged for being overly familiar? Perhaps put up in a stockade for daring to touch me?”

Nikandros didn’t respond. He wasn’t sure how to.

“I’ll not harm a child, Nikandros.” It was a hard answer, sharp and abrupt, and brooked no argument or rebuttal.

“I just meant that you didn’t have to speak to her. Or braid her pony’s tail. But you did, and I wasn’t expecting it. I know you would never harm a child, Laurent. Damen doesn’t love you for no reason.”

Laurent stopped walking so abruptly that Nikandros almost collided with him.

Laurent stared up at him, blue eyes wide.

“Sometimes,” he said quietly, examining Nik’s face for any trace of insincerity, “I wonder where Damianos gets his complete lack of guile and ridiculous, baffling honesty. I’m realizing now...that perhaps it is a cultural trait.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BONUS POINTS!!!!! Who can guess what Damen said to Laurent here:  
> 'Damen leaned in and whispered something in Laurent’s ear, nose brushing against blonde hair. Laurent seemed to soften, and he even flushed slightly across his cheeks. He gave Damen a direct look without malice, and smiled wryly.'


	4. The Torch Relay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Paradise unravels, and reality strikes hard and cruel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As an early warning- now is the time that things become NOT so rosy sweet. Heed the tags. And, YES; what Damen whispered to Laurent last chapter definitely had something to do with very fast ponies :D

Laurent and Nikandros found Damen in the royal stables, speaking to a squat red faced man and running his hands down the legs of a gorgeous bay stallion.

Laurent caught his eye, and swallowed the little thrill that zinged up his spine when Damen smirked at him, eyes lighting up.

Still, after all this time.

“So?” Damen said, loud enough so Laurent could hear, “Should I buy him?”

Laurent approached and held out his hand for the stallion to sniff. 

He was tall and heavily muscled, large enough to carry a man Damen’s size and not seem dwarfed. His mane was long and kinked, and gave his massive crested neck a graceful appearance.

“He has a kind eye.” Laurent said, running his hand up the stallion’s forehead.

“Not mean bone in his body, your Highness.” the red faced man said, patting the horse on the neck with a few friendly slaps.

Laurent looked at Damen, lips twisting. Damen was grinning.

“You’ve made up your mind already, have you not?” Laurent asked.

Damen smiled even broader and stepped closer, their faces on either side of the stallion’s soft black nose.

“I certainly have.” 

Laurent ran a hand along the horse’s neck, up under the thick black mane. His coat was warm and damp with sweat under the heavy hair, his rich auburn fur smooth as bare skin.

“He’s lovely.” Laurent murmured, and bathed in the amused and smitten smile Damen gave him, feeling his own cheeks flush happily.

 

 

 

Kaina and her pony Kefkos did not win the children’s steeplechase. She was close, however; only a few lengths off for a respectable second.

When Damen got to his feet to greet the winner, he looked over his shoulder and reached out for Laurent and pulled him up.

“You’re a king of Akeilos too. You should do this with me.” 

Laurent followed him down from the high dais, through the crowd and onto the dusty track. Sweaty ponies and disappointed children milled about, and the winner and his little chestnut pony stood proudly waiting.

Laurent watched, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips, as Damen took a knee in front of the nervous but excited boy. It was an easy gesture, and while it was perhaps in some places seen as improprietous for a king to kneel, there was no misconstruing the situation in this instance.

“You rode well.” Damen said, and placed both his hands briefly on the boy’s shoulders. Each palm covered the entirety of each small, bony shoulder.

The boy nodded but said nothing. His eyes were the size of biscuits.

Damen held out his hand and opened his fingers, revealing a large gold coin on his palm.

“For you. Well earned, I should say.” 

The boy held out both his hands and watched owlishly as the coin dropped into them.

“You and your pony are very brave.” Laurent said.

The boy’s head swiveled and his eyes fixed on Laurent. He swallowed and nodded slowly again.

Damen got to his feet and brushed his knee off idly, adjusting his chiton. The lion pin glinted gold in the afternoon sun. He turned to the crowd seated on the raised wood bleachers, and gestured to the boy beside him. Immediately, applause broke out.

The boy flushed with pride, beaming in delight as whoops and cheers washed over him.

Soon, the boy was led away and the stands began to empty, leaving Damen and Laurent standing alone on the race track.

Laurent caught a flash of white in his peripheral vision, and smiled when he saw Kaina and Kefkos, standing a little ways away and apart from the milling crowd.

Kaina was staring at Laurent, a combination of awe and righteous jealousy on her little face.

Laurent turned back to Damen, and lifted up on his toes to whisper into his ear.

Damen listened, and then shot Laurent a look.

“You...think so?” he said.

“I do.” Laurent replied simply.

Damen studied him for a moment, and then nodded.

“If you say so.”

Laurent led him over to where Kaina was standing, her face getting pinker and pinker as they approached.

“Congratulations, Kaina. You did very well.” Laurent told her.

Kaina looked from him to Damen, and stared at him for a moment, before looking back to Laurent.

“Kyta told me you were the king of Vere but I didn’t believe her. _ ”   _ she blurted, and then seemed to recover herself. “But you are.” she mumbled.

“It’s alright- I didn’t tell you I was. It isn’t your fault you didn’t know the name of the Veretian king.” Laurent said.  With his hands behind his back, he began to surreptitiously unlace his one remaining lace.

Kaina glanced shyly at Damen again, and then looked at the dirt.

“I didn’t win. I’m sorry, Exalted.”

Laurent looked up at Damen, who recovered from his apparent shock at Laurent’s familiarity with random children with admirable skill.

“No! You did very well!” he said, and smiled at her in that open and ridiculously friendly manner that Laurent was convinced could melt the most stoic of glaciers. 

To say Damen was born to be a king, Laurent mused, was a vast understatement.

Kaina grinned back, as people always did. Damen had that effect.

“Thank you, Exalted. I’m going to win next year, I promise.”

Damen gave her a very serious look, and Laurent had to stop himself from laughing.

“You’ll practice very hard? And take very good care of your horse?” Damen asked, voice stern.

“Yes, Exalted.” she said, brows furrowed in resolute obeisance.

“Now, the prize for second place…” Laurent said slowly, “Is newly instituted this year.”

Kaina looked at Laurent then, surprise brightening her face.

Damen looked was similarly taken aback.

“It is?” he said.

“Oh, yes. I just decided today.” From behind his back, Laurent produced the second lace from his cuff. “They are worth quite a bit of money, these laces. It’s a shame, really, that I lost the other one...as a pair, I’m sure, they are worth quite a bit more.”

Kaina giggled.

Damen looked lost.

Laurent coiled the long silver strand around his hand, and then handed it to Kaina.

“For you. And if you should find the matching one...do let me know.” Laurent winked.

“Kaina!  _ Kaina!”  _ A woman’s voice cut through the crowd of people leaving the stands, and then Kyta, the older sister, appeared. Her white peplos blew in the wind, leaving little to the imagination as to what lay beneath.

She caught sight of the two figures speaking to her sister, and blanched yet again.

“Exalted.” she said, collapsing to her knees in the dirt. She looked down at her hands clasped in her lap, submissive and demure as a pleasure slave.

Laurent glanced at Damen, curious what effect a beautiful woman throwing herself at his feet would have.

“Rise.” Damen said kindly, smiling and holding out a hand. She took it and allowed herself to be pulled up, staring at Damen with wide sparkling eyes.

Ah, yes, Laurent remembered. She wanted to...what was it? ‘Grab a handful of him’? 

“Your sister raced well.” Laurent told her, watching as Kyta stared at Damen for another moment, and then seemed to realize she was being spoken to.

She bowed her head at Laurent.

“Thank you, Your Highness.” she said quietly.

Suddenly, as if conjured by magic, Nikandros materialized at Damen’s elbow.

“Good race, wasn’t it? Ah, hello Kaina. Kyta.” He gave her a lingering look and bowed in a fashion Laurent felt was perhaps a bit  _ too  _ sauve.

“Kyros.” she said, and curtseyed at him nervously. It was becoming clear that she was surrounded by more nobles and royalty than she was comfortable with. 

“Damianos, we have other things to attend to.” Laurent placed a hand on his elbow, “Good afternoon ladies. And Nikandros.”

They walked in silence for a while, before Damen said conversationally, 

“Getting to know the locals?”

“Maybe.” Laurent pulled at his now loose and ungainly sleeves in a distracted manner, “I was simply making conversation with citizens.”

“And giving them nonsensical gifts?”

“It wasn’t nonsensical if you were there earlier.” Laurent replied primly.

They walked on in silence for a while, the crowd letting them through as Lazar and two other cloaked guardsmen parted the throng.

“I’m going to ride in the torch relay tonight, I think. With Pallas and one of Makedon’s captains.” Damen said conversationally.

Laurent frowned.

“What does the torch relay entail?”

“Three teams of three race around the track, each rider does one lap and then passes the torch off to the next rider. We each do three laps, nine laps total for each team. Can’t drop the torch, and you only get a neck strap to hold on to- no bridle, saddle, reins.”

Laurent gave him a severe look.

“Sounds like a good way to be terribly burnt. Or fall off a frightened or uncontrolled horse.”

“Ah but it’s  _ better  _ when they are frightened and uncontrolled. They run faster.”

Laurent’s frown deepend.

“You are the king, Damianos. Taking part in dangerous sports is an unnecessary risk.”

Damen rolled his eyes.

“You rode in the okton with me, Laurent. There were  _ flying spears _ .”

“Yes. But these are even more fragile times. Our hold on power is tenuous at best.”

Damen raised an eyebrow. “There are  _ two kings _ , Laurent. Our power is arguably more solid than any power ever has been.”

“No. It isn’t.”

Damen opened his mouth to argue but Laurent was quicker.

“I am only sovereign of Akeilos as long as  _ you say I am _ . If something were to happen to you, my claim would be seen as outrageous and treasonous, and I would be either beheaded or imprisoned within a week.”

Damen stopped walking. He was staring at Laurent.

“You...really believe that?” he said.

“Yes. And you are a fool if you do not as well. I am a curiosity here, just as you would be were this Arles. Sewing our flags together and telling the citizens of two countries that they are now citizens of one larger one does not make it so.”

“ _ Then what’s the fucking point of doing it, Laurent? _ ” Damen snapped, his face pinched with anger and hurt, and suddenly Laurent realized how very public this argument was becoming.

“I...don’t know how to answer that question.” Laurent kept his voice quiet, but flat and hard. He abruptly remembered Nikandros’ question from a few days ago; ‘ _ does Damen know you think this?’   _ Laurent felt a hard knot of tension yank sharply in his chest.

Where Laurent’s face was easily shuttered, Damen’s was not. Laurent watched as he went from angry to shocked and hurt, betrayal flitting across his face, and then closed off entirely. Just to see it was enough to make Laurent feel suddenly queasy with regret. 

It was the first time Laurent had seen him this way in many months. Perhaps even a year. 

He shouldn’t have said that.

“Then perhaps you should think harder.” Damen said. 

The words were like a slap, and Damen turned on his heel and marched back the way they came, red cape catching the breeze and twisting with a harsh snap.

 

 

 

The torch relay would begin at sunset, as it always had in the years previous for the near millenia the Hippophoria had taken place. 

It was not, Laurent learned from overheard conversations, unprecedented for the king to take part, though it had been many generations since it had happened last.

It was also, according to Pallas, who was brightly and enthusiastically telling Laurent everything he didn’t wish to hear, not unprecedented for riders to be crushed under the feet of their horses after falling off.

“Happened all three times I’ve ridden it!” Pallas said, and held out his arm, showing a strip of shiny burn skin along the inside of his elbow, “Got burnt pretty bad last time too. Hopefully today will be better.” 

 

 

Laurent left the festival grounds and went back to the royal solar; the sounds and smells of the throng of people and animals were muted this high up.

He stood in the middle of the room, and he closed his eyes. 

Every muscle in his body was locked stiff with tension, the ache of anxiety sitting hard and deep in his chest. It had been so long since he’d felt...like this...that he’d forgotten how to forcibly will himself to relax. He used to be able to do anything using just sheer willpower.

Now he felt weak and unsupported, easily shattered. Some small part of him, deep in his flesh, was quivering in a way it hadn’t since...since a long time ago.

‘ _ Then what’s the fucking point of doing it, Laurent?’ _

__ The words, said with so much hurt and surprise, caused him a physical pain as sharp as if Govart was stabbing him in the shoulder again, twisting the blade between flesh and bone.

Laurent’s hands were balled in fists, so tight they were shaking slightly.

What was the point, Damen? Why are we subjecting ourselves to this hellscape of bureaucratic manipulating and forcing enemies to become countrymen?

_ Because I want there to be an excuse for us to never be parted longer than a second. I want to be king because I can be king with you. _

__ _ I want you more than I want anything on this earth, and it scares me when I realize what I’d give up for us. For you. _

Laurent had wanted so badly for it to be easy, and for their word to become law.

__ But oh Gods, was it not unfolding that way. Every road they took was blocked with anger and tradition and bad blood so old it was rotting everything it touched. Every stance they took, they had to either defend and compromise or abandon entirely. 

Nothing they did was simple, and not anywhere like they hoped or wanted.

And now...now, Gods damn him, Damen wanted to ride in a ridiculously dangerous relay that apparently ended in death  _ nearly every damn time _ . 

If he was killed…

Laurent let out a long, shallow breath.

If he was killed, every second of pain they’d endured would have been for nothing. Every battle with the kryroi, every border struck down, every compromise made.

But that wouldn’t matter. Because without Damen, it wouldn’t matter to Laurent that he wasn’t king of Akeilos.

It wouldn’t matter at all. 

Because Damen was his everything. He was his beginning and end, his everything between. It was a realization that Laurent was comfortable with; giving himself entirely to Damen was as easy as breathing. 

But now, it felt so fragile. 

And Damen didn’t even have to be  _ killed _ . There were so many ways a human could not die but still be as good as.

‘ _ Then what’s the fucking point of doing it, Laurent?” _

__ Laurent still didn’t have an answer for Damen. Not one that was...real. 

Worthy. 

Enough.

Laurent’s eyes snapped open when he heard the solar doors open and close with a heavy thud. He turned and watched with a harshly schooled expression as Damen strode in, his long legs taking big steps across the room.

He stopped part way across, and stood still for only a moment.

Laurent could see his jaw tick tightly.

Damen continued to the dresser, never actually looking at Laurent, and he began to disrobe in quick, rough movements, his back turned.

Laurent pivoted silently and crossed his arms, tightly holding all his parts inside. He felt like if he uncrossed them, every organ in his body might spill onto the floor.

He watched as Damen tugged off the lion pin at his one shoulder, and then the other small pin on the other, his cape falling to the ground in a ripple of red like a rich waterfall of fresh blood. He tugged at another pin and unwound the fabric from him, it too falling to the ground.

He was naked then, bronze skin open to the slight breeze, the massive scars on his back rippling as he rummaged through the dressing cabinet and withdrew a pair of riding slacks, more Veretian in style than Akeilon. 

Laurent could feel every dull, horrible rushing sound of his traitorous heart right behind his eyes, and it  _ hurt _ in his chest. His whole body ached with tension, magnified as he gazed on Damen.

Damen jumped perfunctorily into the breeches, tugging at them.

There were laces that did up in the back, usually not an issue when one was attended by a slave or, now, a servant.

“Let...let me.” Laurent blurted, stepping forward when Damen fumbled with the string behind him for a second time. 

Damen hesitated for a moment, and then stood stock still as Laurent came the rest of the way to him. 

Laurent caught the ties in his hands and tugged them closed, cinching the fabric around Damen’s solid waist.  

Laurent could feel the heat of his skin, pouring off him in sheets like rain from a metal roof. He smelled so good, so familiar and delicious, Laurent could hardly bear it. He wanted to be wrapped in Damen so badly it ached, and to wrap him up in return.

Laurent tied a tight and sturdy knot, delicate in appearance but strong. He lifted his hands from his work, but didn’t step away.

The proximity was excruciating, and the long, leaden silence only more so.

“ _ Please, Damen.”  _ Laurent whispered hoarsely, staring at the lacing at the base of Damen’s spine, “ _ Please don’t.” _

“The people want to see that their king is one of them.” Damen said sharply, still not turning. He reached into the wardrobe and withdrew a simple white shirt, pulling it over his head. The swath of marked skin in front of Laurent’s eyes was eclipsed from sight.

“You could die, Damen. How is that worth it?” Laurent said, his voice hard and small.

“Then I will die as a king. That’s all you or I can ask for.” Damen rounded on him, and his face was still sharp with anger. He stared at Laurent for a breath, and then said, injury obvious in his tone, “And it is worth it. I thought you thought so too.”

He stepped away, his long strides now taking him back out of the solar.

“Damen.” Laurent said, crossing his arms again to contain the overflow. His arms were wrapped so tightly it was more as if he were physically restraining himself. Restraining himself from what- leaping forward or collapsing onto the floor- he didn’t know.

Damen paused by the door.

“Please.” Laurent said. He knew he sounded as if he were almost begging.

Damen left.

 

↭↭↭

 

 

Nikandros felt Damen’s sour mood as keenly as a drop in the  wind on a breezy day.

The king came striding into the tent where Pallas and Makedon’s captain, Lypides, were getting ready to ride, throwing open the tent flaps. 

He was alone.

Even in the meagre torchlight, Nik could see his face was set as hard and unforgiving as marble. He looked very different from the kindly king gifting a coin to a small child just hours before.

“Did you draw for our horses?” Damen said, ignoring Nikandros entirely as he strode into the tent.

“No, Exalted. We opted to wait for you. We felt it only right that you draw lots first?” Pallas formed the last statement as a sort of question, glancing at Nikandros for confirmation.

Nik raised an eyebrow and continued to watch Damen.

“Fine. Get the other teams in here and let’s draw. I don’t want to waste my evening waiting.” Damen’s voice was hard and clipped, and Nik felt the tension in the room twitch up to almost audible.

“Y-yes, Exalted.” Lypides stammered, and bowed his way out of the tent.

Damen turned and went to the nearest table, where a pitcher and goblets sat. Nikandros watched as Damen poured himself a large quantity of wine and swallow several large mouthfuls.

He heard Pallas inhale sharply.

Nik stepped up beside Damen.

“If I could suggest sobriety for the torch relay?” he said cautiously.

“And I’d suggest you fuck off, Nikandros. I’m not getting drunk.” Damen didn’t raise his voice, but his tone as every bit as bitter as Nik had ever heard it.

Nikandros took in Damen’s demeanor and harsh scowl, and then felt dread well up in his chest.

“You rowed with him, didn’t you? What about?”

Damen didn’t answer, just took a long sip of wine and stared ahead in stubborn, stony silence.

“If he told you not to do this, I’m inclined to agree with him. This relay kills people all the time.” Nikandros took the goblet from Damen’s hand and put it back on the table.

Damen rolled a shoulder and adjusted the drape of his loose shirt across his shoulders. He said nothing.

“Damianos.” Nikandros said quietly, voice nothing but earnest.

Damen chewed his lower lip briefly, and then heaved a great sigh.

“I asked him what the point was...of doing all this work, uniting the countries...if the people still hated each other. And he...didn’t answer. Said he couldn’t.”

Nikandros frowned.

He remembered his and Laurent’s conversation in the royal solar.

‘ _ Wishing for something does not make it happen.’ _

“He doesn’t trust the strength of the allegiance or the loyalty to you both as sovereigns. He told me as much.” Nikandros said quietly.

Damen glared at him abruptly.

“He  _ told you  _ this?” Damen hissed.

“Yes. And I agree with him on this as well. You only have to look around to know he’s right. The Veretians keep to themselves and tour our country like a menagerie. They see us as barely tame savages, Damen, not countrymen. And no Akeilon thinks of Laurent as their king...more like the king’s uppity bedslave.” Nikandros attempted a chuckle to lighten the tension.

Damen snarled at him.

“Get out.” he said, picking up his goblet and pointing at the tent flap with his other hand, “Get out, before I have you thrown out.”

Nikandros blinked.

“Damen, you-”

“Go! Find Laurent, have a lovely conversation about how hilariously deluded I am. By all means.” 

Nikandros’ eyes flicked to Pallas, who had gone rigid with surprise. He looked back to Damen, who was glaring at him with nothing but hurt and fury.

“Very well. As you wish, Exalted.” Nikandros said carefully, then bowed and left the tent.

 

 

The air outside the tent was cool and breezy, and considerably less confining. 

It also consisted of 100 percent less Damen, which made Nikandros happy in that moment.

Nikandros strode through the crowd and tried not to be upset. This was a difficult feat: it was one thing to be dismissed by your king, but yet another when that king was your lifelong best friend. Damianos had never spoken to him this way, not ever in the many years they’d known each other. He also had never, in the year since his ascension, visibly been upset with Laurent like this. 

Before today, whenever they disagreed publicly over some policy or other, events unfolded in a predictable manner: first, the disagreement would start in council or during a meeting of some variety. Damen would get increasingly annoyed and Laurent would get less and less responsive, his voice cool and infuriating. Eventually, Damen would lost patience and adjourn the meeting, and he and Laurent would argue in their private rooms. Then, according to the blushing servants and red-faced guardsmen, the kings would have loud and athletic sex that was often audible several rooms over. Nikandros, who had the misfortune to walk past their door on one of these occasions, could attest to that fact.

Clearly, however, this was not the case today.

Nikandros wove his way through the throngs of people gathering in the stands by the racing oval, many of which were drunk and carrying mugs of mead and tankards of beer and casks of wine. Even the odd Veretian was visible in the quagmire, looking mortified by the rabble rousing around them.

Nik knew where Damen was coming from, and why he was upset as he was. Damen was, by default, an honest and trusting man. He believed in the best of people by default, and he was so unfailingly charismatic that people began to believe in the best about themselves too. 

This trust in human nature as inherently kind and forgiving extended, in Damen’s mind, to the merging of Vere and Akeilos. He hoped, idealistically and perhaps naively, that just saying it was so would make it thus. He believed that kings could share a country if the other king said it was to be. He believed the people of these countries would be okay with it.

It was a beautiful idea. And in many ways, they’d somehow made aspects of it work. 

But one only had to look around at the terrified Veretian visitors invited by Laurent, and at the vile sneers aimed at the Veretian king by Akeilon peasants, to know that the unrest ran deep. 

Laurent had no such delusions about human nature. Nikandros knew it, and Damen knew it. But he’d been able to keep his uncertainty at bay, and he’s trusted Damen’s kind nature. 

Apparently, though, Laurent had voiced his doubt, and not in a way that Damen could handle. It had all boiled over into a fickle mess, and Nik could feel it in the night air like an oncoming lightning storm.

Nikandros fought his way to the royal box at the front of the stands, where Laurent was sitting. His expression was impassive and chilly as ever, and his back was ramrod straight. To look at him, one would never know he’d argued with anyone. 

But Nikandros had learned long ago to never trust Laurent’s face.

Nik took his place in the rows behind the royal box, seated with the other kyros and members of the council that had come to take in the festivities. Vannes, the Vaskian woman who always seemed to be in on a secret, was seated to Nikandros’ right. 

“Kyros.” she said by way of greeting.

Nik grunted and took his seat. He wasn’t in the mood for small talk any longer, and in fact wished he were back in his quarters. Perhaps reading. Or maybe wandering the stables until he found that woman, Kyta, and  _ then  _ returning to his quarters, but not alone.

“Is your king ready to ride?” Vannes said, ignoring his rudeness.

Nikandros stared at the back of Laurent’s chair. All that was visible from the raised seats behind the front box was the top of Laurent’s head, and one white hand, gripping the ornately carved armrest, knuckles pale beneath translucent skin.

“He was in a particularly delightful mood when I left him.” Nik said loudly, “Let us hope it does not impede his performance, and only enhances it.”

The knuckles tightened ever so slightly on the wood, but there was no other movement.

Vannes followed Nikandros’ not-exactly-subtle eye line, and frowned.

She said nothing more. 

Hunting horn sounded on the periphery of the track, and then horses were being led on to the track in halters but no riding tack, with thick ropes around the base of their necks. Each had a man astride, many of whom has painted warpaint on themselves. 

All around Nik in the stands, people started whooping and yelling in excitement.

The hand offs would happen in front of the main stands, once each rider had completed one of their three laps. While the riders could choose whether to gallop up from a distance to get speed or to start from standing, all handoffs of the torches must be done within a large square directly in front of the royal box, denoted by light coloured sand on the track. Because the horses were only partially controlled and likely energetic due to the proximity to fire, the handoffs were known to be the most interesting and entertaining part. 

Nikandros could see Damen on a fine-boned grey gelding, standing out from the other riders by wearing a light shirt and riding trousers rather than a chiton around the waist.  

He was scowling something fearsome, and Nikandros was glad he couldn’t see the look on Laurent’s face from his seat. 

The traditional torches were handed out-  heavy sticks with fabric wrapped at the end, slicked in tar from the black, greasy pools by the mountains. 

The man who had been handing out the torches kept one back, and approached Laurent’s seat. Nik could hear half the man’s words, and saw him proffer the unlit torch to the King of Vere.

There was a breath of apprehension from around the stands, people wondering what would happen; would the foreign king…. _ our _ supposed foreign king...take the honored place of the torch lighter?

Laurent got to his feet, and cheering, much of it ribald and quite rude, rose up around him. 

Nikandros watched as Laurent leapt lightly down off the wooden raised box and onto the track. He took the torch, inspected it briefly, then lit it in a nearby brazier. The flame came to life rapidly and with gusto, and the bright light reflected in Laurent’s crystal eyes, flickering and twisting like a wild thing. Laurent’s hair flashed white and gold.

He approached the first rider of each of the three teams, soothing their jittery horses as he did so, passing along the growing flames. The bright lights on the track soon became a swirling flock, and as each torch was lit, the minders of the horses slipped off the halters and stepped away. 

Damen’s team was the last to have his torch lit, and Nikandros found himself holding his breath as Laurent approached him. 

He could only see Damen’s face; Laurent’s back was turned. 

Damen held out his torch, and the horse he was on shied away when Laurent neared. 

Laurent reached out and took a hold of the horse's halter, holding the torch away.

He could see Damen watching, stone faced and dark, but nothing more.

“Hmm. If I didn’t know our sweet lovebirds better, I’d say there’s been some quarrelling.” Vannes said beside him, her voice so quiet it was almost inaudible to Nik beside her. Her Akeilon was superb but accented.

Nikandros ignored her.

Laurent lit Damen’s torch and took a step back, then another. He let go of the horse just as the handler pulled off it’s halter. The horse pinwheeled and Damen stayed easily astride, gripping the neck strap and wrapping his legs around the gelding’s steel grey flanks.

Damen turned to the crowd and lifted his torch in the air as his horse danced about, and the cheering rose to a deafening pitch. Nik watched, his jaw set tight, as Laurent tossed the torch into a brazier and returned to the royal box.

Damen handed the torch to Pallas beside him, who nodded sharply. It made sense: while the king should receive the flame, he should also be the last to gallop his final leg.

As he approached, Laurent’s face was marble and his eyes ice. There was no gleaning from his expression if he and Damen has spoken. 

The hunting horns sounded and the first leg of riders- there were four teams-  readied themselves as best they could, their horses fresh and barely controlled. 

The gamesmaster, who had handed Laurent the torch, held up a bright piece of silk near the edge of the track, looked around at the assembled riders, and let the silk fall.

Four horses took off, their riders whooping and kicking as they galloped away, flames streaming behind them like earthbound comets caught in a tiny ellipse. From the well lit seats, the  far side of the dim track was almost impossible to see except for the roaring lights flashing rapidly in the darkness.

In front of the box, the horses that had to wait behind were dancing nervously.

The first hand off went relatively smoothly, with much circling of nervous horses until the torches could be handed off and then the new riders could gallop away. 

The cheering was feverish around Nikandros, and he let out the occasional whoop for solidarity’s sake, but his heart was crawling into his throat, hot and thick and choking. His hands were gripping the bench beneath him.

As the second riders came galloping up the home stretch, the third riders began to circle trying to guess where their teammate would come through. 

Damen, excellent horseman that he was, aimed his gelding perfectly to intercept Lypides’ mare, and their handoff was done effortlessly. Damen was off galloping before any of the other three teams had a chance to hand off, but he was large on his horse and was almost overtaken by the time his lap was completed by a smaller man on a large chestnut. 

Pallas missed taking the torch on Damen’s first try, and Nik saw Damen scowl nastily. If his mood had not been foul, he would perhaps have laughed and made a joke.

It was not the way tonight, Nikandros mused.

Pallas finally grabbed the torch and was off, third of the four to hand off in that heat.

“I say, this  _ is  _ some fun, isn’t it?” Vannes said, craning her neck to see the horses galloping in the distance.

The next few laps were quite smooth, until one of the teams fell off in a hand off and were disqualified. The remaining three were well matched, and as Damen exploded off into a gallop for his final lap, and the final lap of the race, he was flanked on both sides by the other riders. 

Nik got to his feet, one hand hard on his sword hilt, the other in a tight fist.

It was almost over, and then he could relax. Could return his mind to figuring out the sudden yawning rift between Laurent and Damen. He could forget this foolishness.

There was a great deal of shouting, and the other riders had all dismounted, holding their nervous and sweaty mounts as best they could, all while straining to see what was happening. 

As Damen and the two other horses rounded the corner, they were a tightly packed bunch. The riders were hooting and kicking ferociously, their torches getting dangerously close to burning the man beside him. 

Nikandros glanced down at Laurent’s seated figure and saw how his hands were clasping each other so hard the pale skin had begun to turn purple. 

Standing at the edge of the dais, Jord was watching the milling and excited people on the track, frowning.

Damen’s horse, small as it was, was shoved by a larger one and fell behind, causing his horse to gallop into the ring and over the finish in second.

Nikandros let out a long, sharp breath of relief. He felt his shoulders slump from a rock solid set used usually when about to run into a battle.

“Your Highness…” Jord said, stepping towards Laurent, still looking at the crowd of men and horses in the finishing square.

Damen had circled his exhausted mount back and was grinning despite himself at the winner, who was punching the air with his torch.

Nikandros watched the flame flare and twist as it was brandished….

… and then all hell broke loose. 

 

It started with the explosive crackle of tiny bouts of flame, thrown suddenly into the mass of men and excited horses. The noises were sharp and loud as nearby lightning, and Nikandros recognised the noise as pepper beans- beans, which, when soaked in lamp oil and lit on fire, would explode into bouts of flame and with terrific noise. 

The herd of horses spooked as one terrified animal, and those mounted were suddenly holding on for dear life.

Nikandros barely had time to inhale and yell Damen’s name before Laurent had leapt up in front of him.

“ _ Wait. _ ” Jord yelled over the confusion, hand out stretched to stop Laurent from going onto the track, and he looked back to where Damen was grabbing a handful of mane, and trying to soothe his gelding, who was rammed into by a huge bay and shot forwards.

As he did so, a man in a black robe upturned a brazier next to the track, and flames and coals went flying onto the earth, directly in front of several horses, including Damen’s gelding.

Nikandros took one running step as Damen’s horse reared and went over backwards, a second step as the tangle of horses and flames and screaming people disappeared in the smoke from the brazier, and a third sent him flying off the dais, precisely as Laurent shoved past Jord and leapt off beside him.

“ _ Damen!”  _ Nik screamed, blindly shoving panicking people out of his way. He could see flashes of blonde hair in his periphery, but his mind was only on getting through to his fallen king.

His fallen best friend.

Smoke choked him as he stumbled through a scattering throng of Veretian nobles, and he saw suddenly the man in the black robe who had spilled the brazier, stumbling against the current of people towards the chaos on the track.

There was a flash of silver and Nikandros saw he had a wicked looking knife in his hand.

“ _ You!”  _ Nikandros cried, and leapt for him, but he was too late. The man saw him, and took off at a sharp right angle into the crowd.

Nik swore and tried to orient himself in the darkness and smoke.

“Damen!” he shouted, and then jerked aside as a panicked horse galloped towards him.

He felt a breeze blow past him as the horse did, and the smoke wafted away.

He saw the tangle of horses, and he felt his voice die in his throat.

The gelding Damen had been riding was trying and failing to get to it’s feet; one of it’s legs was skewed out at the wrong angle. Nik grabbed for it’s neck strap, but the horse fell again, and Nikandros was too busy staring at the scene on the ground to try again.

Damen was laying on his back, eyes delicately closed as if he were asleep.

But there was blood on the side of his head, and a hoofprint on his chest, and Laurent was sitting in the dirt beside him. 

As Nikandros neared, his legs uncertain and shaking, he heard Laurent’s voice.

The tone- so quiet and so terrified- was so utterly alien, Nikandros had to see his mouth moving to know the words were coming out of his mouth.

“ _ Damen, please, I’m sorry, please, Damen, I’m sorry, please, please, Damen.” _

Nik went to his knees beside him, placing a hand gently above Damen’s heart. It was difficult to focus on- his own was beating so hard and loud it was if the world was quaking.

“He won’t wake?” Nikandros asked.

Laurent smoothed the black curls from Damen’s forehead, his hands gingerly caressing his head.

“Please Damen. Please.” Laurent’s voice was so quiet, Nikandros barely heard it.

Nik grabbed his king’s wrist and felt for his pulse there, and his own breath came out in a shudder when he felt it against his fingertips.

“Laurent. He needs a physician.” Nikandros said, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand, and he dipped his head, trying to catch Laurent’s eye.

Laurent was staring down at Damen, his usually blank face one of abject terror.

He looked, Nikandros thought absurdly, unfathomably young. 

Nikandros put a hand on Laurent’s shoulder, and he jolted as if he’d been burned.

“A physician.” Nikandros said again, more forcefully. 

Laurent whipped about and his eyes scanned the crowd, which now was milling about and trying to see what was happening. 

“Paschal!” he yelled, and he looked immediately to Lazar, in civilian clothes but had a sword in his hand. 

Lazar turned to Pallas, who was looking both furious and mortified, and hissed something to him, and Pallas took off towards the palace at a run. 

“We should get him inside. Move him.” Nik said, watching as Laurent turned back to Damen and pressed his palm against the place above Damen’s ear where he was bleeding.

Laurent didn’t act as if he heard. Nik heard him whisper again, in the voice of a frightened young man, not a king. 

“ _ I’m sorry Damen. Please don’t _ .” 

“I caught this bastard trying to escape in the crowd!”

Nikandros turned and saw Jord approaching. He had the man in the black cloak by the hair and a knife to his throat. As he neared, he threw the man bodily to the ground, and Lazar pressed his sword to his chin. The man stared at the earth, panting, and didn’t move.

“He was the one upturned the brazier. I saw him heading for the track with a knife, but he dodged me.” Nikandros said, getting to his feet.

“Yes, I’ve taken his knife. And his bag of pepper beans.”

“He meant to kill the king.” Lazar said quietly, and caught Nikandros’ eye.

Nik nodded in silent confirmation, and looked back at the man sprawled on the ground. 

“We need to move the K-” he began, but his voice faltered when he felt something brush his side. 

Nikandros turned his head and saw Laurent, blue eyes sharp as shards of glass, right beside him. 

Seizing the hilt of Nikandros’ sword, Laurent pulled it from its sheath with a violent yank and send Nik stumbling sideways. 

The Veretian king advanced on the prone figure, the gleaming Akeilon steel catching the embers of the spilled brazier. 

The man in the robe looked up and clamoured backwards, eyes widening. 

“Speak,  _ rat.” _ Laurent said in Akeilon, his voice like venom dripping from a snake’s fangs, “Tell me who sent you to kill him.” He advanced closer until the man was flat on his back, the tip of the sword less than an inch from the man’s nose.

The man stared up at Laurent, and then swallowed hard. Nikandros saw his resolve build behind his eyes.

He glared up at Laurent and spat something in the thick, rough dialectic of the eastern coast. 

“What did he say?” Laurent said, eyes unwavering from the man beneath him. 

Nikandros glanced at Lazar, who he knew didn’t understand either. 

“He said…” Nikandros swallowed, “He said he’d not answer to a...a Veretian boywhore.”

Laurent’s nose twitched slightly and his upper lip curled for the briefest of seconds, in the same manner a feral dog’s might before it savaged it’s master’s hand. 

His wrist flicked, and the man screamed as the sword sliced through the soft tissue at the end of his nose. 

“ _ Who sent you to kill the king.” _ Laurent hissed, kicking him hard in the centre of his chest and sending him sprawling. Blood flowed in great bubbling gouts from his slashed nose. 

Nikandros felt a chill in his spine, and his eyes flitted about the circle, and then out of it.

Many eyes were watching. 

“Your Highness…” he said, stepping forward hesitantly.

Laurent ignored him, just as he ignored everyone else. His sole focus was the man sprawled on the ground, gurgling. 

“ _ Who.”  _ Laurent said, his teeth set together. 

The man’s eyes were wide and rabid, and they went from Laurent’s face to Lazar’s, to Jord’s, Nikandros’, and then back to Laurent. 

Finally, he lifted himself onto his elbows.

This time, when he spoke he spoke in clear Akeilon, and loud enough for all nearby to hear.

“He’s not a king, he’s a traitor! He gave up his country for a Veretian brat so cock hungry, he lets his brother’s killer fuck him and spill inside him.” the man spat a mouthful of blood at Laurent, “Akeilos will never be yours,   _ filthy bed boy. _ ” The man leered with a mouth full of red teeth, and then rolled onto his stomach and tried to scramble away. 

Laurent was on him as fast as a cat on a rabbit, and just as cruel. 

The sword went across the man’s back in a long and terrible arc, cleaving his robe and flesh open in a long slash.

The man screamed and collapsed, writhing in agony. 

Laurent swung the sword in a whistling swing back to his side, and kicked the man back over, standing over him like a ruthless judging demon. 

“Who. Sent you.To kill the king.” said Laurent.

The man lay on the track, gasping like a dying fish on a dock. 

Laurent’s sword raised again, and Nikandros’ hand darted out. He grabbed the king by the upper arm, feeling hard and unforgiving muscles under  the thick brocade. As soon as he was restrained, Laurent’s entire body went ramrod stiff with tension. 

“Do not.” Nikandros told him quietly, as Laurent’s head snapped to the side to stare at him. His glare could have melted steel and hammered rivets.

“We can question him later.” Nik added.

Laurent was motionless for another beat, and then yanked his arm away violently.

“ _ Do not touch me. _ ” 

On the ground, the man wheezed and his eyes were drifting out of focus. 

Laurent looked down at him, and he made a disgusted sound in his throat.

He threw the sword into the dirt and stared down at his quarry, eyes dark and fathomless.

“We must move the king.” he said, his voice loud, flat, and chilly as a winter river.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *keep the 'Angst with a happy ending' tag in mind*


	5. Loyalty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bonds break and are forged in the inferno that is heartbreak.

Nikandros realized, as he ran along the stone halls behind the men bearing the king...bearing  _ Damen _ ...that he would have felt better had there been blood.

When Crown Prince Auguste had stabbed him all those years ago, there’d been great gouts of blood and Damen had sweated out his meticulous bandaging, pale faced but stoic.

When Kastor had attacked him in the baths in Ios, and Laurent had ordered Nikandros to fetch help and then later help carry him up to a bed, there’d been blood everywhere- the marble floors, Nik’s hands, Laurent’s chiton. But Damen had been smiling, laughing even as he was jostled and he would flinch then return to smiling.

Now…

Now, there was barely any blood at all, and Damen was not even awake. 

“He’s not woken at all?” Paschal, the man that Nikandros always thought of as the Bread Man due to his bizarre hat, said as they lowered Damen onto a narrow bed in a side chamber of the main hall. 

“No. Nothing.” Laurent said, sitting down next to his head. There was blood on his hands from Damen’s scalp.

Paschal hummed and bent to examine the cut in Damen’s hairline. 

“This was done by a horseshoe. A glancing blow, I think.” Nikandros watched as the man’s fingers probed around the wound, and partially clotted blood oozed dark and slippery around his nails. 

“His skull is intact.” he said, and pulled up one of Damen’s eyelids. He looked at him from close up, and nodded. “His pupils are normal.”

He leaned back and sighed. His hands came down to the white shirt, and the hoofprint on it. 

“It is this that I worry about most, at the moment.” Paschal took a small knife from the pocket of his robe and slit Damen’s shirt up the front. 

Nikandros inhaled sharply.

Already turning from deep red to purple and blue, the lower half of the right side of Damen’s rib cage was a mess. He’d clearly been stepped on, and when Paschal pressed into the bruise, Nikandros heard the telltale grind and crunch of broken ribs.

Nikandros glanced up at Laurent, who still had a hand rested on Damen’s face, caressing his cheek. He wasn’t looking at the bruise- he was examining Damen’s motionless countenance, his own as hard and waxen as a bronze cast.

“I’ll need quiet for this next part.” Paschal said, and Nikandros noticed it was him he looked to, not Laurent, for authority.

“Everyone out.” Nikandros said, nodding to the men who’d help bear Damen into the palace. Lazar and two Akeilon men nodded and left, but Jord simply stiffened and frowned.

“You as well, Jord.” Laurent said, not looking up from Damen’s face.

Jord watched Laurent’s profile for a moment, and then his gaze turned to Nik. 

His eyes were hard and calculating.

Jord left.

Paschal stooped and pressed his ear to Damen’s side, right beside the big ugly bruise. He closed his eyes and Nikandros watched his face set grim in concentration. 

After a few moments, Pachal straightened. 

“We’re in luck. His lungs sound clear, which suggests to me that the damage is superficial, not internal. A few broken bones, but nothing worse than I am sure he has had before.”

“He’s not awakening, Paschal.” Laurent said. Nikandros knew now, after hearing how Laurent had sounded back at the track, that he had not imagined the hard, choked tone of it. 

Paschal sighed and pressed his fingers gently to the underside of Damen’s jaw.

“His heartbeat is strong. I believe it is just his head now keeping him asleep. It is difficult to judge these things- even with minor surface damage, a seemingly healthy man can die from trauma to his brain. A man with terrible wounds to his head can survive to live normally. Many are thrown from horses and live, your Highness.” Paschal said.

Nikandros felt anger bubble in his chest. 

“Yes. But many also hit their head and die. Or break their neck. You speak in half truths, healer.”

Paschal fixed Nikandros with an unimpressed look.

“Half truths are the only thing I can speak in, kryos. Nothing is certain, not with head injuries.”

“So you have no idea when he will awaken? None at all?” 

“No. Now, if you will excuse me, your Highness, I shall go to my store rooms and gather what things I need to clean his head wound.”

“Yes, Paschal, thank you.” Laurent said. He didn’t look up.

Nik frowned down at the bed, drowning in frustrated helplessness.

“I insist I send someone to get an Akeilon doctor.”

Laurent ceased his stroking back Damen’s hair and lifted his eyes to Nikandros’ face. They looked like lead, and his gaze was just as heavy.

“I trust Paschal with my health more than any other man alive. He is the one who will treat Damianos.”

“He is my king, not yours!” Nikandros snapped back. He realized his mistake immediately upon closing his mouth.

Laurent’s eyes narrowed. 

“Isn’t he? Regardless, he is my  _ everything else _ , and so it is I who shall be making the decisions. Not you,  _ kryos _ . You may leave us.”

Nik bristled immediately at the dismissal. 

“No, I’m not ‘leaving you’. Damianos is my best friend and king. I won’t leave him with an incompetent doctor and you, who I just had to physically restrain from torturing man in front of hundreds of civilians.”

“Get out.” Laurent said quietly, voice flat. His entire body had gone stiff with tension.

Nikandros snorted derisively.

“An assassin calls you a bed boy, and you almost skin him alive? What a benevolent and diplomatic king you turned out to be.”

“ _ I said get out.”  _ Laurent said, his hands balled into tight fists. His jaw was tight.

Behind him, Nikandros heard the door open and Jord enter. 

“Your Highness?” Jord said, right behind Nik. 

Laurent didn’t take his eyes off Nikandros’ face.

“Escort the kryos back to his chambers. See that he stays there.”

Jord grabbed Nikandros by the elbow, but Nik didn’t budge. He had four inches on Jord, and fifty pounds of muscle. 

Nikandros was staring at Laurent.

“I don’t know what it was he did. But your uncle sure did a number on you.”

Nikandros heard Jord’s sharp intake of breath. 

Laurent’s hand darted out as fast as the strike of a cobra, and Nikandros only barely ducked the goblet, which smashed against the wall behind him and sent wine everywhere. 

Laurent was vibrating with rage. 

“I said. Get. Out.” 

With a swirl of his chiton, Nikandros left. 

 

 

 

 

 

Jord was completely silent as he shadowed Nik through the few corridors to his room, but even that Nikandros found irksome. 

_ Make one sound _ , he fumed internally,  _ one creak of leather or scrape of steel out of place. I dare you.  _

__ Nik threw open the door to his chambers and glared over his shoulder at Jord. 

“So?” he sneered in Veretian, “Going to see that I stay here?”

“Yes.” Jord said bluntly, “I will do as my king asked of me.”

Nikandros snarled at him. He stormed over to his desk and poured himself a large portion of wine, throwing most of it back in several uninterrupted gulps. 

“ _ King _ .” Nik said mockingly to the room at large, his lip curling, “He is a petulant, selfish child prone to tantrums. He is a  _ snake _ , not a  _ king _ .”

“And you are a blind and cruel idiot of you really believe so.” Jord replied.

Nikandros slowly turned back around to face the other man, who was standing by the door. 

“And I’ll thank you to not insult him. I’d hate to have to tell King Damianos when he awakens that I killed his best friend in a battle for King Laurent’s honor.”

Nikandros all but spluttered at him. 

“I am the kyros of Ios!”

“Perhaps. But you are also afraid and angry.”

Nikandros gaped at Jord.

The man was middle aged, neither handsome nor plain, tall nor short. He did not overflow with confidence or charisma...and yet…

And yet, Jord exuded a quiet and stoic sense of sturdiness. He was unshakeable.

Nik was reminded of Damen sighing one day, looking at Jord speaking with Lazar across the sparring ring, and telling Nikandros in a resigned voice, “He is one of the greatest and bravest men I know, and yet life has not been kind to his heart. His strength, sometimes, is beyond me.” Nikandros had put it off, at the time, as Damen being overly sentimental.

“Blind and cruel, am I?” Nikandros said quietly, eyeing Jord.

Jord seemed to think for few moments, then he sighed a small sigh. He closed the door behind him and crossed over to the window, to the balcony that looked out over the city.

“I have been a member of the King’s guard, and the prince’s guard before that, since Laurent was a boy. I saw him grow from a wickedly clever, bookish and gentle hearted boy into a hard and unforgiving man of pure stone.”

Jord adjusted his sword, but didn’t look away from the lights of the city below.

“I once saw a tree on a mountainside when I was travelling through Vask, many years ago now. It was alive, thriving even, but wickedly bent at an angle. It obviously has broken at some point...due to a storm, lightning, wind, I can’t say for certain. Yet, despite this, it lived on. It was no less beautiful or wild, but it was shaped by the cruelty of nature nonetheless.”

Jord turned to Nikandros, and his eyes were sharp, and his jaw set. 

“It is in this way one must think of the King. He was shaped violently and without his want, and yet he lives on.  He was never meant to be king, never meant to be alone in the world, an orphan with no brother. In the moments when he flays your flesh from your bones using only his forked tongue, it is easy to forget that he ever was that same clever and bookish little boy. But he was, and in many ways that I see every day, he still is.”

Jord took a few steps towards Nikandros, and though he was markedly shorter, his stature seemed to have increased as he spoke. 

“You are blind and cruel, Kyros of Ios, because you do not see the truth; in his short life he has seen much misery and death. He has only ever been loved,  _ truly loved _ , by two people in this world, and now he is afraid that the second will die and leave him alone, just as the first one did.”

Jord adjusted his sword again, and he looked askance at the ground, his brow furrowed heavily. He went to the desk where Nikandros was standing and poured himself a drink in a metal chalice. He drank from it deeply, and then placed it back on the wood with a heavy  _ thud. _

“I have every reason to hate him. Personal reasons, not just ones of duty and honor like you. He consciously has ruined me, broken me, been the cause of sorrows I do not wish to relive. But I cannot hate him. I would die for him tomorrow if he asked it of me, and that is a truth I can say of very few people.”

Jord tapped the rim of the chalice with one finger, the metal ringing with a dull bell tone. 

“I invite you, as one soldier of Vere to a soldier of Akeilos, and one friend of King Damianos to another...to reconsider your opinion of my king.” he tapped the rim again, and then looked up at Nikandros. His gaze was direct and unwavering, and devoid of any apology. “And should you ever mention his uncle to him again in that manner, I will kill you as a butcher does a hog.”

 

 

 

↭↭↭

 

Fear, Laurent reflected, was a many faceted, labyrinthine emotion. It could roll and crest like waves on the ocean, drowning you slowly as it seeped into every pore and filled you up. 

He’d felt that kind of fear before, many years ago, when he’d stood in the centre of a war tent at Marlas, the wind whipping the canvas about him as he looked down at the shrouded figures of his dead father and brother.

He’d been a child then.

He was not a child now.

Laurent watched as Paschal’s sure and steady fingers dabbed hot salt water onto the gash on Damen’s head, and then he went back to staring at Damen’s closed eyes.

This was a different kind of fear. 

It was a climbing, panicking fear. It had Laurent’s heart rabbiting in his chest, his hands shaking and his teeth chattering.

He couldn’t do it again. He  _ couldn’t _ . 

After Auguste died, the world had been empty and cold. It would be the same without Damen; the same yawning abyss inside him, hollow and echoing with regret. 

And he  _ couldn’t do it again. _

“ _ Please, Damen.” _ Laurent whispered, brushing his thumb across the place he knew Damen to have a dimple on his left cheek. 

How many times had he kissed it? A hundred? A thousand? Always it made Damen smile wider, and always made the dimple deepen. 

Paschal finished applying his special healing salve to Damen’s head, his fingers gleaming in the candlelight. 

“I’d ask if you were going to stay the night with him, Your Highness, but I am quite confident I know the answer.” 

Laurent nodded, but didn’t look away from his face. 

“Yes, Paschal. You can go get some sleep. I will be here if he wakes up, and have someone sent for you.”

“Very well.”

Laurent waited motionless on the bed beside Damen as Paschal gathered his things and left quickly without a word. Once the door was closed behind him, Laurent let his eyes slip closed. He took a long, shuddering breath that sounded like a death rattle and made his ribs ache. 

Laurent slid down the bed, carefully and gently arranging himself so he was laying beside Damen on his side, his face only a hand's breadth away. He found he was suddenly overly conscious of the harsh sound of his own breathing, and how every exhale buffeted Damen’s raven black curls. They were macabre impressions of little flowers in a spring breeze, bouncing ever so slightly, and it only made Laurent’s heart sink deeper in his chest. 

He carefully lifted a hand and placed it on Damen’s bare arm nearest him. 

His skin was so  _ warm,  _ and the texture of it so soft, it was easy to forget the power that lay underneath it. Laurent trailed his fingers across the delicate thin skin of the inside of Damen’s elbow and up over the swell of his considerable biceps. He could feel little pocks and bumps; battle scars from too many years of war for one so young.  

He let his hand slide down again, across the long prominent veins of his forearm and finally slipping into Damen’s palm, lacing their fingers together. Laurent squeezed his hand, hoping against hope.

Damen didn’t squeeze back, and Laurent let his eyes trail back up to Damen’s face, serene and placid. 

Misery crested in his chest, and Laurent could feel tears choking him in a tight fist around his windpipe. His breath caught in the back of his mouth, fluttering like a trapped bird. 

He hadn’t cried in years. 

Many years.

Too many to count.

He bit his lower lip, hard, and pressed his face against Damen’s shoulder, screwing his eyes shut. 

He held on to Damen’s hand, and he didn’t let go. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Laurent didn’t know how long he lay there, forehead pressed desperately to Damen’s shoulder, inhaling his smell and listening to him breathe. It could have been minutes, hours, perhaps even days. All he knew was that every second he held Damen’s hand, and that Damen didn’t squeeze back as he always did, ached like a festering wound. 

No one came or went from the room, but even if they had, Laurent might not have noticed. He was in the bubble that surrounded them, absent from the world.

He did not appeal to the gods- they had ignored his desperate tearful pleas for salvation when he was younger, and so he would ignore them now. If they existed at all, they deserved nothing from Laurent. 

What finally brought him back into awareness was the sound of morning birds, some native and some migrating south for the winter. Their sweet songs filtered in through the heavy blinds that covered the open windows. It was early: just before sunrise. 

Laurent opened his eyes for the first time in what felt like years, and looked at Damen’s face. 

It hadn’t changed. 

Laurent was so absorbed in cataloging, he didn’t hear the door creak open, and he only turned his head when movement arrived in his periphery. 

It was Nikandros. 

He slunk into the room, still dressed in his fine, gold edged chiton from yesterday. He closed the door behind him, silent as a cat, and then turned to face the bed.

His eyes met Laurent’s, and he froze. 

He visibly swallowed, and then looked down at the floor, a frown appearing on his face, and a crease between his eyebrows. 

“I thought you would be asleep.” he muttered quietly. 

Laurent blinked slowly. 

“And I thought you would be in your quarters.”

Nik looked back up at him, and his jaw set tightly. In the half light of the morning, the muscle ticked in his cheek. 

“I climbed out the balcony.” he said. 

They stared at one another, stubborn brown eyes to stubborn blue. 

“I would expect nothing less.” Laurent said quietly, after the silence had stretched to breaking point. 

He lowered his head gently back down to the bed and resumed watching Damen’s profile. 

He heard Nikandros pick up a chair and carry it over to the bedside, on the opposite side of Damen from Laurent. With what seemed to Laurent to be an excess amount of rustling, he finally sat and was quiet, except for a faint metallic tinkling noise. 

Laurent lifted his eyes, and looked at Nikandros. 

He was holding a puzzle toy in his hands.

This toy was different than any of the ones Laurent had seen; it appeared to be made of brass shapes, each twisted and molded around each other. As he watched, he saw Nikandros’ fingers test each piece for play, twisting each way slightly. Finally, there was a complicated clicking noise and the whole toy changed shape slightly.

Laurent went back to staring at Damen’s face.

“I am glad you didn’t give me that one. I would have lost patience with it and had it melted down to a paperweight within an hour.”

Nikandros exhaled sharply through his nose, in a sort of huff of a laugh. He didn’t look up from his hands. 

Except for the quiet noise of metal sliding against metal, the room was quiet again. Laurent let his mind drift, let himself focus on the soft sounds of Damen inhaling and exhaling, of his heart beating. 

“I’m sorry. For what I said.” 

Laurent was only just enough in control of his reactions to stop himself from starting at Nikandros’ voice. 

He lifted his eyes. 

Nik was still staring at his hands, and he was frowning again. 

Laurent sighed. He pushed himself up into a sitting position and his whole body felt stiff with fatigue, stress and inaction.

“Don’t apologize. I...deserved it.” 

Nikandros looked up at him, confusion writ on his face.

“I should, in actuality, be thanking you. Apologizing to you. You...you shouldn’t have had to step in like you did. I was...I was angry.”

Nik said nothing. He just watched Laurent. 

“I am known to have a temper.” Laurent added, and he picked at a run in the fabric of the sheets.

Nikandros went back to fiddling with the toy in his lap for a moment, but his frown deepened as he did so. He looked back up at Laurent, his face set hard. 

“You make the mistake of thinking you’re the only one who loves him. Who really cares about him. You think it’s just you and him against the world. You’re  _ selfish _ . And you’re  _ wrong _ .”

Laurent’s eyes narrowed at him. 

“He is  _ all that I have. _ ” he said, ice slipping off every syllable. 

“No. He isn’t. He has all of us, and you have him. You have everyone, even me, by proxy.” Nik held up a hand and used his fingers to list names, “You have Lazar, you have Pallas, you have Vannes even, who came all the way here just because you invited her. You have Jord- fucking Jord, who would throw himself on the nearest sword for you. All of these people would follow you into the nearest convenient hell.” Nikandros looked at Damen then, and he reached out, placing a gentle hand on his arm. Laurent felt a sudden surge of protectiveness, almost as if he wanted to claw Damen away from him like a spoiled child with a toy.

“He’s like my brother, he’s my oldest friend, and he will be the greatest king of Akeilos to ever be born. I know you love him... it’s obvious in everything you do… but I love him as well. I know you’re new to this ‘unconditional’ love, but...it doesn’t mean that you and you alone have to protect him. Loving Damen isn’t a contest- he has lots to go around, and besides, you’ve clearly won.”

Laurent’s hands were in tight fists. His fingers were twisted in the sheet fabric and were cramping. 

“Is this your way of telling me I have to share?” Laurent said wryly.

“Yes.” Nikandros said flatly. 

Laurent stared at him, and Nikandros stared back. 

“I know that he is yours and you are his.” Nik said softly, and Laurent felt his breathing hitch of it’s own accord, “It drove me insane how much he would overlook for you. But I think I’m...starting to get it.”

Laurent glared at Nikandros.

“I love him.” he said, daring Nik to disagree.

Nikandros nodded and looked at the gentle rise and fall of Damen’s chest. 

“Yes. That much has...come apparent.”

Laurent let out a shaky breath.

They were silent for a while, motionless and looking at nothing. 

Laurent could feel the weight of everything on him, like a yoke of lead. The merging of the countries, the seemingly futile attempts at placating all the ragged edges...it all bore him down.

What had uncle always said? 

‘ _ How much prettier you are, down on your knees.’ _

Laurent’s jaw clenched hard, and he felt the searing anger in him rise and fall, washing up the shores like the tide and retreating just as soon.

It was no longer that way. It would never be that way again. 

He could bear the weight now, if he had too. It had brought him to his knees, over and over when he was a boy, and broken him in a million different ways. 

But Nikandros was right; he wasn’t alone.

And he could stand.

“Thank you.” Laurent said quietly, into the emptiness of the room. 

 

 

↭↭↭

 

Nikandros jerked out of his reverie at the sound of a knock on the door.

He glanced at Laurent, who was still laying on the bed beside Damen, their hands clasped together as tightly as the shells of an oyster. 

“Come in.” Nikandros said.

The door creaked open slowly, as if the person opening the door really wished they didn’t have to open itl in the first place.

It was Pallas.

“Er. Your Highness?” he said cautiously.

“Is indisposed. What do you need?” Nik said.

“Um. Well, half the city thinks the king is dead, the other half that he is dying, and according to Lazar, there is a small faction that thinks he and King Laurent have left on a boat.”

Nik groaned and rolled his eyes heavenward.

“Alright,” he said, getting to his feet, “I will come-”

“No. It’s fine.” 

Nikandros looked back to the bed where Laurent was rising to his feet and adjusting his clothes. 

Even unslept and rumpled, he was astonishingly beautiful. 

He glanced at Nik, then at Damen, and then back again. 

“We will just be outside. You’ll get me if anything happens?”

Nik nodded and sat back down. 

Laurent bent and pressed a kiss to Damen’s forehead, lingering for just a second, then he slipped out the door with Pallas.

Nikandros crossed his arms and glared at Damen’s still face.

“I hope you’re incredibly proud. You’ve got the whole damn place in an uproar.”

He leaned forward and pulled aside the light covering laying over the bruise on Damen’s side. He sucked in air through his teeth. 

“Not to mention you’ve got an even better bruise than the time Kastor’s stallion kicked you in the thigh.”

He covered the ugly wound and leaned back into his chair, sighing deeply. He lifted his feet up, setting them on the edge of the bed.

“And I will concede...that he loves you, if possible, even more than you do him. It’s gross, Damen.”

Nikandros tilted back in his chair.

And promptly went over backwards.

The crash wasn’t that loud, but the amphora of water breaking on the tile was. Nikandros grimaced and picked himself up off the floor. 

“Fucking hell.” he muttered, righting his chair with one hand and picking up the largest piece of the amphora with the other. It was the spout. 

Nik sat back down, placing the broken spout piece on his finger like an ugly ring. 

He fiddled with it, glanced back up at Damen...and froze. 

Damen was looking back at him, his eyebrows pinched in confusion. 

“Did you...fall out your chair?” he said.

Nikandros gaped.

Damen’s head swivelled slowly, and he made a pained wheezing noise. 

“Why do I feel like I was stepped on by a herd of horses?”

Nikandros couldn’t contain the bubble of laughter that burst out of his lips. 

“Not a herd. Just one.”

“Oh.” Damen said, staring at the ceiling. He groaned and closed his eyes. 

“You’ve been out for...half a day, I’d say? Took a good whack to the head.”

Damen opened one eye, the other screwed shut, and surveyed the room. He apparently didn’t see what he was looking for, because he opened the other and tried to sit up. He paled and keened, a hand flying up to the bruise on his side.

Nik sprang forward and pressed him back down. 

“Where’s Laurent?” Damen said, despite the sudden drop in colour on his face. 

“He stepped out for a second to talk to Pallas. He’s been laying beside you all night, Damen.” Nikandros gave him a pointed look.

Damen studied his face and then sighed. 

“He hasn’t slept?”

“No.”

Damen’s eyes closed again, and his face creased with remembered anguish. 

“We...I remember we fought.”

“Yes. You did.”

Damen frowned and went to run a hand through his hair, only to yelp again. 

“ _ What the fuck?”  _ he hissed, feeling gingerly at the wound on his head. 

“Like I said; a good whack.”

Damen grumbled darkly and continued to prod at the wound.

“Do you...want me to get him? I promised I would if you woke up.”

Damen met his eye, and then nodded.

“Thanks, Nik.”

Nikandros got to his feet, forgetting briefly about his new ugly ring. He went to the door and slipped out.

The corridor was quiet, with silent guards stationed at every visible column and corner. Nikandros followed the voices and found Pallas and Laurent in a window alcove, along with Vannes and Makedon.

“...on fast ponies to every port before this gets out of hand.” Laurent was saying.

Makedon saw Nikandros first, and he smiled knowingly when Nikandros met his eye and nodded slightly.

Makedon caught Laurent’s eye and jerked his chin in Nikandros’ direction.

Laurent spun around, and when he spotted Nikandros, his face did something similar to what it had done on the track the night before; he looked unfathomably young.

“He wants to see you.” Nikandros said, and he couldn’t stop the grin on his face if he tried. 

Laurent took a sharp breath and then he was gone, his long legs bringing him back towards the little room.

 

 

↭↭↭

 

Laurent could feel every fiber of his muscles twanging with anxiety, every tiny hair on his skin raised in gooseflesh. 

He put his hand on the door handle, feeling the cold metal under his fingertips. 

His breathing was sharp and through his nose. He didn’t trust himself to open his mouth, for fear that his heart might drop out of it; it felt as though it were right in the back of his throat. 

He opened the door and stepped in, eyes straining against the darkness.

His eyes lit on the bed, and the figure in it, and the entire world disappeared like so much smoke and mist. 

“Hello, lover.” said Damen. He was smiling.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everyone's comments are SO nice and SO sweet and heck I just love all of you!! You've been so welcoming and positive, I'm even expanding the last chapter :D And here I'm usually the one demanding the smutty epilogue...


	6. For You and Me and Us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Hello, lover."  
> What comes after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it! Thank you to everyone who has been reading and commenting- I adore you all.

 

 

     All the air in Laurent’s lungs came out in a rush. He clamped his lips over the involuntary whimper of relief that escaped from deep in his chest.

“Come here.” Damen said, and held up a hand to him.

Laurent didn’t know if he ran, walked or flew over to the bedside, but he was there in less than a heartbeat.

He took Damen’s hand. It was warm, and it squeezed back.

“How are you feeling?” Laurent said, his voice weak and rough.

“Terrible. How are you?” Damen grinned in a pained sort of way, and when his dimple creased his cheek, Laurent felt his knees go weak. 

He sat on the bed.

“I’m...very cross with you.” he said. He knew his voice was tremulous, but he didn’t care. He was too preoccupied with Damen’s hand in his.

“Hmm. Rightly so. But...to be fair...I was very cross with you as well.”

Laurent gripped Damen’s hand tighter still. He would never let go. 

“I know.” whispered Laurent. 

They stared at eachother for a tiny eternity. 

“Will you kiss me?” Damen asked. 

Laurent nodded, not trusting himself to speak. He bent, brushing the tips of their noses together, and then their lips. 

The kiss was soft and dry and warm, and Laurent couldn’t stop the little noise of relief in his throat at the taste of Damen’s mouth. It took every ounce of strength Laurent had to withdraw. In the end, he was only strong enough for a few inches and nothing more. 

Damen brought his free hand up and cradled Laurent’s cheek, his big thumb brushing just under the bottom edge of Laurent’s lower lip. His eyes were sincere, imploring even, as they examined the face before them.

“Will you tell me?” he asked. His voice was low and gentle, “Do you...know what to say yet?”

Laurent stared back, his heart racing. 

_ “Then what’s the fucking point of doing it, Laurent?” _

He could hear it still, crashing around inside his skill like a trapped bird in a tiny cage.

Laurent tried to rein in his breathing, but it was coming out in sharp pants. 

“You.” he said, “It’s...it’s you. All for you.”

Damen blinked. 

“I wasn’t supposed to be anyone’s king, Damen...I didn’t  _ want _ to be...but I look at you...and I suddenly I want to be a king, as long as I can be one standing next to you.”

Damen let out a long breath, and his eyes slipped closed. He gently pulled Laurent closer until their foreheads were touching. 

“I was so terrified, when you told me you didn’t know what to say.” Damen said. His voice was low and cautious, “All I want is to share everything I have with you; my kingdom, my heart, my life. Everything. But when you said...I thought maybe you wanted to keep things separate, like it wasn’t worth it to keep trying…it killed me.”

Laurent shook his head hard, and he clasped Damen’s face in both his hands. 

“No, Damen, never. I want to share everything with you. It’s all yours, everything I have.”

Damen’s eyes opened and met Laurent’s. In the poorly lit room, they were black as ink. 

“You want to keep trying to merge the kingdoms?”

“Yes.” Laurent let his head fall onto Damen’s shoulder and he pressed his lips to the soft skin at the join of his shoulder and neck. “Yes, I do.”

Damen wrapped his arms around Laurent best he could, and he held him.

They were quiet for quite some time, simply basking in their renewed nearness. The sounds of the awakening city were drifting in through the curtains, and the morning birds were being slowly drowned out. 

“Will you lie down with me?” Damen asked tentatively.

Instead of replying, Laurent carefully shifted and lay on his side to Damen, pressed all along him. He closed his eyes and listened intently to the different rhythm of Damen’s breathing, changing and hitching as a conscious person’s will. Even the groan of pain as Damen shuffled closer and jostled his cracked ribs was better than the interminable silence of before. 

“You may never fall off a horse again.” Laurent said, after Damen settled.

Damen laughed, and then groaned again as soon as he did.

“See what I mean?” 

“Yes, yes. I get it.”

 

 

 

The rest of the Hippophoria festival went off without a hitch.

After the temporary incapacitation of the King, it was all of five hours after he woke up that Paschal and Laurent gave up trying to keep Damen in bed. 

“I’m fine!” he said, with his torn and dirty chiton hanging half off, and wobbling dangerously on his feet, “I feel normal!”

Laurent ran his hands through his hair, and conceded defeat. 

“You may be carried on a litter to the stands, where you will  _ sit _ and watch, in the  _ shade _ .” Laurent said, arms crossed and mouth set firmly.

Damen did his best to look contrite.

“Okay.” he said.

“And no wine. Water or juice only.” Paschal added.

Damen frowned, his sweet brow wrinkling unhappily.

“Not even a  _ little  _ wine?”

From where he was standing in the corner, Nikandros’ chin fell to his chest in resignation.

 

Laurent did not leave Damen’s side for even a moment of the rest of the festival. He sat beside him, shaded carefully with thick cloth from the bright fall sun, and drank fruit juice from a gold chalice meant for wine. They interlaced their fingers, despite the warm temperatures, and every time Damen gave his hand a squeeze, Laurent’s heart kicked up in his chest like a foal in spring.

_ For you. For you and me and us, I will do this. _

_ I will do anything. _

They watched racing, chariots, jousting, equitation, showmanship, stallion classes and colt breaking competitions. Whenever someone won, Laurent would stand, stoop, press a quick kiss to Damen’s cheek or forehead, and descend to the track and present the award himself. 

In the each of the evenings, a huge dinner was held in the main hall, with meat and wine and fall vegetables cooked in fat and herbs. The Veretian nobles, Laurent noticed, were getting less and less austere and were more likely, each night, to quaff from tankards of mead or Akeilon beer (or even griva, if they were brave), and to become friendly with their nearest Akeilon. Once or twice, Laurent saw a Veretian locked in an intimate embrace with someone they most certainly had  _ not  _ brought from home. 

It was progress, just as tiny water droplets would eventually make a storm. 

As part of his recovery, Damen would retire early and Laurent would smile and join him. They left the partying to the nobles and invited guests in the hall, adjourning to their rooms. 

Laurent did paperwork and kept up correspondence, working by candlelight, and Damen slept, occasionally snuffling awake and grumbling about Laurent coming to bed. When he did eventually finish his work, Laurent would strip out of his stiff outerwear and hang it carefully in the closet, and then slip under the covers beside Damen, only to be coaxed closer by the furnace of him, and the sweet smell of his skin.

Once or twice, when Damen hands had started to map the geography of Laurent’s body, he twinged the still extremely sensitive broken bones and bruising on his side, and immediately made a sound like a wounded bull.

“Patience.” Laurent had said, resting a hand on Damen’s cheek and kissing him sweetly, “As it was before; I will still be here when you are recovered.”

Damen had pouted nonetheless.

 

 

 

The last night of the festival was notoriously the rowdiest and most exuberant of them all, and this occasion was no exception.

When Laurent slipped into the hall, it was already full of men and women laughing and shouting at one another over the heads of children who had yet to be corralled off to bed, dogs that had escaped their chains and for some reason, a throng of small goats eating a huge pot plant. 

Laurent walked swiftly through the crowd, which split for him relatively neatly considering the level of anarchy he’d seen unfolding. The looks he was given now, at the end of the festival as opposed to the start, were less wary and more...respectful. Reverent.

As if he were a king, not a curiosity.

Damen was watching him approach, smiling a little. Laurent came to a stop in front of him. 

“And? Care to explain your tardiness?” Damen asked.

“Not in the least.” Laurent replied.

Damen smirked, and his dimple tweaked to life.

“No. I didn’t think so. Are you sitting?”

“In a moment. First, however, I need to speak with Nikandros.”

Damen blinked.

“Um. Alright. He’s over there.” he indicated with his chin the direction of the buffet table, laden with food and almost groaning under the weight.

Laurent inclined his head and departed, leaving Damen with a bemused expression.

Nikandros was indeed standing at the buffet table. He was holding a plate and frowning down at it.

“Problem, kyros?” Laurent asked, coming to a halt beside him.

Nik continued to look down at the table and his plate.

“There are eight potato dishes.” he said slowly.

Laurent raised one fine eyebrow.

“Your point?”

“I love potatoes.” Nik replied.

Laurent’s eyes narrowed slightly.

“...and?”

“And I can’t possibly try every dish, no matter how much I want to.”

Laurent burst out laughing.

“I can have the cook save you some of each and have them sent to you for every meal, if you really are so concerned.”

Nik was still frowning at his plate.

“I haven’t even got to the meat yet.” he said dejectedly.

“And you won’t for a moment yet. Can I borrow you?”

Nikandros gave him a questioning look, and then nodded.

Laurent led him out of the main hall, through group after group of soldiers and nobles in both expensive chitons and laced up brocade coats. The smell of cooked meat and spilled beer seeped like smoke around them.

The halls leading away from the party were quite occupied as well, with servants bustling about carrying trays and bottles, amorous couples seeking seclusion. Laurent patently ignored the latter.

“I can’t decide which is worse- you leading me away from the party to kill me or to try to bed me. Both are equally terrifying.” Nikandros said dryly, looking askance at an embracing couple in a passing alcove.

Laurent snorted despite himself.

“In either scenario I end up dead, of course.” Nik mused. “Although something tells me Damianos would probably prolong my death should I bed you... make me suffer as much as possible.”

“And I would not, were I to kill you?” said Laurent, shooting a dubious look his way.

“Fair point.”

They reached a narrow hall, and Laurent stopped dead by a small and unassuming door.

Nikandros looked around, brows knit.

“Is...this where you kill me?” he asked.

“No. This is where I show you my gratitude for…” Laurent gritted his teeth and took a short breath in through his nose, “For being a friend.”

Their eyes met and held, and Nikandros slowly smiled.

It was a teasing smile.

“Oh, how difficult I know it was to say that. Makes me warm all over.” 

Laurent picked at a sleeve and adjusted the cuff underneath, sniffing.

“Yes. Well. I don’t have all that much experience with trying to be in people’s good graces.”

“ _ You don’t say _ ..”

“ _ And _ ,” Laurent continued, ignoring him, “I figured you would be...interested.”

Nikandros tilted his head.

“Interested?”

Laurent wordlessly opened the narrow door and stepped inside.

The room was small but well appointed with silks and dressers and a lavish bed. It was a room visiting dignitaries and courtiers stayed in, and was nicer than any inn in the town.

Laurent looked back to see Nikandros blanching when he saw the interior.

“Erm...I was  _ joking _ when I said you try bed me…” he said, eyes wide with horror.

“Oh, shut up and get in here.” Laurent said, and dragged him in by the wrist.

Nik looked sheepishly around the room…

..and then his eyes went wide for a different reason.

“Oh.” he said dumbly.

From where she was seated at a small table, Kyta, the girl from earlier in the festival, waved gingerly. She was flushed but smiling nervously.

Laurent stepped away and clasped his hands behind his back.

“She asked after you when I saw her earlier today. I told her that I would find a way to let you two meet, perhaps away from prying eyes.”

“Oh.” Nikandros said again. He was staring.

“Say hello, Nikandros.” Laurent prompted.

“Hello.” he parroted.

“Hello, kyros.” Kyta got to her feet and curtseyed. Her dress was sheer and cut low, and were Laurent even slightly inclined, he would say it showed her breasts off magnificently.

“Nik...Nik will do fine.” Nikandros said weakly. 

“Ah, good. I see we are getting along famously.” Laurent nodded to Kyta, who was giggling at Nikandros’ slack-jawed expression.

“Thank you, your Highness.” she said, and she winked.

“Feel free to join in the festivities once you two are better acquainted. There are goats, if you are interested. I’m not completely sure why.”

Laurent made to bow out of the room, but Nikandros held up an unobtrusive hand.

“Thank you.” he said earnestly.

“Anything for a friend.” Laurent said, giving Nik a look.

He grinned.

 

 

 

Damen was no longer sitting at the head table. He had apparently lost interest in sitting and being droned at by an old retired Akeilon general, because when Laurent returned, he, Lazar, Pallas and three other young Akeilon men were standing around watching the goats eat what appeared to be a platter of roasted carrots.

They were up on a table.

“Why, may I ask, are there goats, on a table, in my main hall, eating carrots intended for human consumption?” Laurent asked as he neared the semi circle.

“Not sure. Either way, your Highness, it makes for very entertaining dinner conversation.” Lazar said. He petted the nearest goat fondly.

“Makes me want roasted goat something awful, though.” said Pallas, who was eating a comically large leg of what appeared to be lamb.

Laurent sighed and glanced at Damen, who was grinning at him.

“And just what are you mooning at, oh Exalted one?” Laurent raised a questioning eyebrow at him.

Damen stepped closer and ducked down so his lips brushed Laurent’s ear.

“I have a gift for you.” he whispered, and Laurent’s skin broke out into goosebumps.

“Is it roast goat? Because I am uninterested at the moment.”

“Come with me.” Damen said, eyes bright with laughter, and he took Laurent’s hand.

They left the main atrium by a different door, heading out through the busy halls towards the kitchens. Laurent let himself be tugged along, through rooms lined with oil amphora and baskets of fruit and vegetables, until finally Damen opened an inconspicuous door and they were outside, in what appeared to be the kitchen gardens.

As soon as the heavy door hushed closed behind them, the quiet fell like a solid mass. 

Laurent swivelled around, taking in the high walls covered in hops and honeysuckle vines, and the carefully tended rows of vegetables and herbs.

“I’ve never been out here. I didn’t even know it existed.” 

Damen didn’t let go of his hand, but he reached out and plucked a lovely ripe gooseberry from a bush.

“Nik and and I used to escape official dinners this way. In the summer, we’d hide in the raspberries and eat ourselves sick until someone came and found us.”

Damen raised the gooseberry to Laurent’s lips, and he bit into it. It was sour and sweet and flowery, and the juice trickled down his lower lip.

Before his tongue could dart out to catch it, Damen stooped and caught it instead with his mouth, which was warm and tasting of fruit juice and rosemary seasoned meat. 

When he pulled back, Laurent raised his free hand and brushed one of Damen’s big ridiculous curls out of his eyes.

“Was this the present?” he said quietly.

Damen shook his head, smiling wider and wider.

“No. But this is was a good diversion.”

“I agree.” Laurent lifted himself onto his toes for another kiss. As Damen bent his head down to collect on the offer, Laurent darted back a stride.

He smirked lopsidedly, and when he saw an answering twinkle of mischief in Damen’s eye, he knew he’d been understood.

Laurent walked slowly backwards, eyes never straying from Damen’s face, which was splitting wider and wider in a grin. He was advancing, legs long and graceful, matching each of Laurent’s steps. They’d gone down most of the central passageway, and were nearing the pumpkin patch, where the swollen fruit was gleaming in the moonlight.

Laurent stopped.

Damen stopped.

The air was tinkling with the fraught moment, waiting for the tension to break…

...and Laurent bolted.

Small stones skidding under his feet, Laurent made it around the corner and narrowly ducked Damen’s wide swipe at him. Laughing brightly, he caught himself on a wooden pile and raced off up the path towards the root vegetable patch.

Where Laurent’s legs were long, Damen’s were longer, and when Laurent glanced over his shoulder, he saw Damen was right behind him, smiling a wicked and gleeful smile. 

“Paschal said no running yet!” Laurent shouted, and leapt over the raised bed for the strawberries. He spun around, and saw Damen waiting, poised to chase after him around the bed once Laurent chose a direction.

“If I told him I was chasing garden pests who tease, I’m sure he would forgive me.”

Laurent grinned and began to back away slowly, watching as Damen advanced along the side of the strawberry bed. 

“He’d tell you you are getting old and slow, barbarian of mine.” Laurent said sweetly, and then he was off again, past rows and rows of carrots and beets, then onions and fennel bulbs. He skidded around the corner of the building, feet sliding on the loose rocks, and then came up short.

The ancient garden wall stood before him, tall, dark and impenetrable. It was covered entirely in vines, blooming all over with huge, bright white flowers which seemed to glow in the silver moonlight. 

Laurent was panting to get his breath back, and when he turned around, Damen was blocking the way back into the garden. 

Damen came closer, and Laurent backed up further and further until he was swallowed in the vines, back against the cold stone. 

“Old and slow, am I?” Damen said, so close their chests were touching.

Around him, the moonflowers bobbed and bounced lazily; against Damen’s black curls, they were white as freshly fallen snow.

Laurent licked his lower lip into his mouth, still panting to get his breath back, and Damen watched the motion with ravenous eyes. 

“Ancient...derelict even.” Laurent’s voice was helplessly breathy.

“Mmm.” Damen hummed, and then stooped and kissed Laurent in a manner that could only be described as filthy, his lips hot with exertion and his breath sharp. 

Laurent didn’t try to swallow the little moan that crept out of his throat. He wound his arms up around Damen’s shoulders,  and he felt strong arms in turn wrap around his body. One of Damen’s big hot hands slid down his back and palmed Laurent’s ass possessively, drawing their hips together. Their tongues slipped along one another, and Laurent mewled unashamedly when Damen’s teeth caught his lower lip.

Laurent could feel Damen’s heart beat, hard and strong and unmistakable, right against his own chest. 

It was  _ here _ .  _ Here _ that he belonged. And in order to have this, he would do anything.

Damen parted their lips, his eyes black and liquid in the darkness. 

“Come on.” he whispered, and pressed their noses together, “Let’s go.”

They snuck through the kitchen garden to an ancient and heavy wrought iron gate, which Damen had to heavy mightily on just to get it’s hinges to work. 

Laurent found himself watching the way Damen’s biceps and shoulders bulged and rippled as he did so, and swallowed hard.

The yard outside was quiet, but it buzzed just slightly.

The bee houses were kept here, and Laurent reminded himself as they passed to ask about the bees at a later date.

They picked their way through an old hitching yard, and finally arrived behind the pastures near the royal stables, smelling of straw, horse manure and fresh hay.

Laurent inhaled deeply and smiled to himself. His favorite smells.

They entered the barns via the back door, greeted by a few deep nickers here and there. Many sets of sharp ears pricked at them in the lamplit dim.

“No, I’m sorry, I have no grain for you.” Laurent whispered to the nearest soft nose, which bumped his chin and made him grin when hot breath ruffled his hair.

Damen tugged his hand again, gently.

“This way.”

They walked through the noisome darkness, surrounded on all sides by the busy, comfortable noises of horses at rest.

They paused at Damen’s new bay stallion, who Damen patted on the neck and declared a ‘handsome lad if ever there was one’ before encouraging Laurent along once more.

“Is there a reason we are here, Damianos?” Laurent said, voice pitched low so as not to disturb the peaceful atmosphere.

Damen brought Laurent’s hand up to his mouth and kissed his knuckles.

“Yes. Look, just there.” 

Laurent followed Damen’s gaze to the last stall on the end of the hallway, and he stepped closer.

Peering at him, with her big dark eyes and golden ears, was the palomino filly.

“...you…” Laurent said, his voice failing him as he stared at her.

She stepped closer and reached out of the stall for him, her white mane silvery in the light from the nearest lamp. Laurent touched her velvet soft nose, and she lipped at his fingers gently. 

“I bought her off Nikandros. I know you liked her.” said Damen.

Laurent let his hand slide up the filly’s cheek, feeling her smooth coat slip under his fingertips. 

“She’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” Laurent whispered. His voice was stuck in his throat.

“Mm. I beg to differ.” Damen said.

Laurent turned back to him, his chest hammering wildly.

Damen was watching him, eyes kind and smile gentle, his dimple just a shadow.

And gods, but did Laurent love him.

He ran the few steps to him, throwing his arms around Damen’s neck and drawing him in for a hard kiss. He knew he should be careful, be more gentle- it was only five days after Damen’s injury after all- but he couldn’t contain himself any more than he might a lava flow. 

Damen, for his part, hummed against Laurent’s lips and let himself be manhandled, his hands gripping tightly at Laurent’s waist.

“I love you.” Laurent said breathlessly, looking up into Damen’s eyes. They were glittering like tiny constellations.

“And I love you.” Damen replied simply.

And it was simple.

It could be simple.

“Thank you for my gift.” Laurent said, and kissed Damen again, cutting off any possible response.

Damen chuckled against his mouth, and tilted his face so their foreheads pressed against each other, parting their lips.

“Anything for you.” he said.

Laurent buried his face into the hollow of Damen’s throat, and closed his eyes tight.

It could just be simple.

 

↭↭↭

 

 

 

_ One Year Later _

 

When Damen emerged from the council meeting, it was late afternoon. 

He stretched lazily and adjusted the drape of his chiton, watching as tired generals and lawmakers filed out after him. He nodded to Pallas, who looked dead on his feet, and then Makedon, who had actually been asleep for the latter half of the meeting.

“The long expected arrival hasn’t happened yet, I take it?” Makedon said, tugging at his clothing like a man unused to not wearing armor, his face heavy with sleep.

“No. Not yet.” replied Damen.

“It will be soon. I can feel it, Exalted.” Makedon gave Damen a hearty slap on the shoulder, the force of which would probably have felled a smaller man.

“I hope so.” he sighed.

Makedon smirked. “Yes, I heard a rumor about his Highness staying the night away from you. Been a while, has it?”

Damen ignored this entirely and raised a hand in greeting when he saw Nik approaching.

“Council over then?” 

“Yes. Curious, really, how you are able to be entirely absent when we convene but suddenly appear as soon as it is over.” Damen tried to look stern. He failed.

Nik looked up at the ceiling. 

“I’ve no clue to what you are referring.” he said primly.

Damen rolled his eyes and gave Nik a friendly shove.

“You’ve been spending too much time with Laurent. Was he still in the barn when you last saw him?”

“Yes. I just came from there.”

Damen gave him a look.

“Er...I mean...I just came from another pressing matter that took me away from my council duties.”

“Better.”

 

 

 

Damen entered the stables alone, humming an old war song under his breath and breathing in the sweet hay scented air. He strode through the aisles of noble war horses and giant cart horses to the very back of the barn, where the larger foaling stalls were. 

They were all empty except for one.

Damen leaned in the half door, and he smiled a big, smitten smile. His heart, full though it may have already been, swole up even larger with happiness fit to burst.

Laurent was sitting in the corner of the stall, on a bed of golden straw the same gorgeous colour as his hair. He was not in his usual Veretian finery- indeed, he hadn’t been for almost a week. He was in simple dark trousers and his white undershirt, both of which were rumpled and had straw stuck to them. 

A little distance away, eating her hay and looking entirely at peace, was the palomino mare. Her belly was distended to an almost ridiculous degree, and Damen fancied that he could see the foal inside shift just a little.

“This is  _ utterly impossible _ .” Laurent declared, by way of greeting.

He had a puzzle toy in his hands, and he was glaring at it with every sign of a man about to commit arson. 

“Yes, hello. Oh, I’m well, thank you. Yes, I missed you too.” Damen leaned on the doorframe, crossed his arms and continued, “And you’re right, I  _ do  _ look particularly handsome today.”

“Oh, you look particularly handsome every day. Get over yourself.” Laurent grumbled and tried to pry at an unseen seam in the toy.

Damen grinned and entered the stall, giving the mare a quick pat before coming to sit in the straw beside Laurent.

“What’s the story with this one?” he asked, plucking it out of Laurent’s hands.

“Nikandros had it solved in under a minute! I swear he’s cheating somehow.”

Damen turned it over a few times in his hands, and then handed it back.

“He was always good with puzzles. When we were kids he tried to teach me and it always ended up with us wrestling and getting in trouble for being dirty.”

Laurent rolled his eyes and threw the toy out the stall door, where it clattered unseen on the floor. 

“I’m not surprised in the least. You’re still essentially a giant animal as it is.”

Damen chuckled and bent down, pressing his nose into the soft skin under Laurent’s ear and nipping the side of his neck, ever so gently, with his front teeth.

“Not that you mind.” he whispered, when Laurent tilted his head to allow Damen better access.

Laurent sighed and closed his eyes, and Damen inhaled deeply…

And then burst out laughing.

“What?” Laurent demanded, eyes flashing open.

“You smell like a horse!” Damen said, burying his face in Laurent’s bright hair and inhaling again, “A  _ lot _ like a horse!”

“ _ I wonder why that could be _ .” Laurent groused, shoving Damen away halfheartedly.

“Because you’ve been living in this stall for a week? When was the last time you changed? Or bathed? Or  _ ate something _ ?”

“I can’t leave, Damianos. She could go into labour any moment, and it’s her first. I need to be here. I  _ want  _ to be here.” 

“You have the biggest, softest heart in all the kingdoms of men.” Damen grinned at him, and pressed his lips to Laurent’s temple. 

Laurent smirked and let himself be kissed.

Damen glanced over at the mare, who had shoveled a pile of hay aside with her nose and was picking at the fine bits that fell to the bottom of the heap.

“She doesn’t look  _ imminently _ about to pop.” he gathered Laurent into his lap, arms wrapping tight, and pressed his mouth to the back of his neck, “Come up to the palace. Just for a while. Have a bath with me, eat something.” Damen slid a hand down along the inside Laurent’s thigh, and Laurent’s head fell back onto his shoulder, “I’ll make it worth your while.”

Laurent heaved a much put upon sigh and turned his face to look at Damen.

“Must I  _ really _ ?” he said.

“Well, I may  _ be _ a giant animal, but you smell like one.”

Laurent snorted.

 

 

 

The baths under the castle at Delpha were not, as the ones of Arles and Ios were, tile and marble grottos. They were instead well cleaned and furnished caves, into which natural hotspring water flowed. They had been known of for almost a thousand years, and so were richly appointed and evident of regular but gentle human use.

Damen followed Laurent into the biggest cavern, around stalagmites and stalactites formed around candles and ancient lanterns, towards the deepest pool. 

Laurent pulled his shirt over his head and threw it aside, where it hooked on a nearby stone structure of crystal. His pale skin glowed.

“I will miss these hotsprings when we go back to Ios or Arles. This doesn’t feel so…”

“Contrived?” Damen said, unpinning his chiton and letting it fall off his body.

Admittedly, it got caught up a bit, about halfway down...because, well...it truly had been a while.

Laurent stepped out of his trousers and tossed them aside as well, before stepping into the steaming water. 

“Contrived.” Laurent agreed, “Although I was going to say ‘fake’.”

Damen watched as Laurent lowered himself into the glassy calm, perfectly clear water, continuing down until he was entirely submerged, his hair floating up over his head.

Damen watched, rapt, as he resurfaced and smoothed his hair back, dripping in rivulets down the back of his neck from the shorter hair there. He turned and when he took in the state of Damen, he smirked wryly.

“See something you like, Damianos?” He said innocently.

Damen neared the pool. In this lighting, wet,naked and with his hair slicked away from his face, Laurent truly was astonishing to behold.

“You know the Akeilon myth of Pythion?” Damen said, not taking his eyes off the veritable prize before him.

Laurent hummed.

“The god of male beauty? Are you about to make a heavy handed comparison? Please refrain if so.”

Damen entered to pool and stood up to his navel in the hot water, feeling the current gently rush past his feet from hidden wellsprings in the smooth rock.

“He frequently bathed in a pool in the forest, far from prying eyes. But instead of casting a spell on any who wandered across him, he simply allowed them to look their fill, and when he’d decided they’d seen enough, he would beckon them just with a glance. They would come closer and closer and as they entered the pool, so smitten and distracted were they by his beauty, they would drown in their attempt to reach him.”

Laurent grinned and slipped through the water, coming steadily nearer. He reached out a hand and Damen took it. Laurent’s hand was hot and wet, Damen’s dry and merely warm.

Laurent pulled Damen further into the pool, eyes glittering in the dim light.

“So no one ever reached poor, lonely Pythion? Pity.”

Damen reeled Laurent in, turned him and pulling him back against his body. He fastened his mouth to Laurent’s wet nape.

“No one. Only me.”

“My beauty doesn’t render you so helpless that you drown?” 

Damen closed his arms around Laurent’s body, and his now heavy erection brushed against his ass.

“You tell me.” Damen growled. He slipped his hand down Laurent’s torso, feeling the muscles pitch and flex with excited tension as Laurent gasped quietly. He palmed him gently between his legs, and found him in a similar state to Damen.

Laurent gave a breathy hum and ran his hand up into Damen’s hair.

“I do believe there was some mention of making it worth my while?”

Damen held Laurent against him with one hand on his chest, and with the other began to stroke his cock, hands practiced and firm.

Laurent’s body writhed helplessly in his arms, his breathing hitched and the hand he’d buried in Damen’s hair tugged sharply.

Damen watched it all; how his lust-darkened eyes fell closed, how he bit his lower lip and tried to restrain his noises behind his teeth.

Even years later, Damen sometimes couldn’t believe he was allowed this. That he  _ had _ this. That he could  _ keep _ this.

Laurent turned his head, gasping into Damen’s cheek, and Damen took the opportunity to capture his lips in a hot, sliding kiss.

Damen kept his strokes slow, torturous even, his thumb brushing up under the head of Laurent’s cock and stopping there every so often. 

“ _ Ah _ ...Damen…” Laurent keened, voice broken and eyes opening into tiny slits.

Damen hummed and clutched Laurent’s twisting body to him. All that smooth skin, white and buttercream soft, sliding against him...it was fucking heaven.

Damen fastened his lips to the thin, soft flesh behind and below Laurent’s ear, and sucked hard. Laurent made a sweet, petulant sort of mewl, the kind he would never admit to making in any other circumstance, and then swallowed it as soon as it started.

“I want to hear you.” Damen muttered, low and right against Laurent’s ear.

Laurent tugged his hair again, and Damen smiled.

“...Fffffuuuck.” Laurent hissed, and dug his nails into Damen’s arm.

Damen went back to nibbling at his neck, his hand still stroking, only slightly faster now. He could feel by the hammer of Laurent’s heart and the heave of his body that he was getting close.

Damen slipped his other hand down Laurent’s body, over the taught plane of his stomach, catching a finger gently on his bellybutton, and then down, past his other busy hand.

Laurent’s free hand flew up to grab at Damen’s hair, and then both were up around Damen’s neck, supporting his body that way.

Damen pressed his teeth gently into the edge of Laurent’s ear just as he slid a finger over his entrance, pushing just a little. Not enough to breach, just enough to tease.

Laurent’s mouth fell open, and he came under Damen’s hands, nails gouging into the back of his neck as he shook apart. 

“Damen... _ ah, Damen…”   _ he panted, eyes screwed closed and head thrown back in abandon over Damen’s shoulder.

Damen stroked him through it, feeling pleasure surge and subside like waves inside the delightful creature in his arms. 

Laurent shuddered against him and turned around, kissing Damen messily and rewinding his fingers into Damen’s hair.

“I want to use my mouth on you.” said Laurent, his voice but a breathless gasp,  breaking away only long enough to speak, and then kissing him again.

“Laurent, you don’t have to-”

“I want to.” Laurent insisted, pressing their foreheads together.

Damen stared into the bright blue eyes, and saw only fire and desire.

“Okay.” 

They kissed, Laurent’s body slipping against Damen’s arousal as they did.

“Sit on the edge.” Laurent whispered, licking his lips absently. Their noses were still pressed together.

Damen complied wordlessly, dragging Laurent behind him through the water until he reached a rocky outcropping at the edge of the pool, from which one could jump in rather than wade.

Damen boosted himself until he was sitting, his erect cock bobbing heavily as he did. Laurent watched it, and Damen dug his fingernails into his palms to calm his desperate arousal.

Laurent ran his hands up Damen’s thighs, the long fingers tracing up over the dark hair and heavy muscle to the crease where his pelvis and abdomen met. Damen’s chest was rising and falling fast, and with every inch Laurent drew closer, he could feel himself twitch in anticipation. 

Laurent’s eyes roamed over Damen’s body, taking in everything. He ran his fingers up Damen’s sides, pressing hard into his skin and leaving lines. He let his nails follow the edges in Damen’s abdominal muscles, his thumbs sliding down the hard crease of them to below his navel, where the skin was thinner. 

Laurent glanced up from under his lashes, just a flash, and Damen swallowed hard. 

At glacial speed, Laurent leaned in and pressed the lightest kiss to the soft skin, just under and to the left of Damen’s bellybutton. He let his nose trail across a few inches, the tip of it cooler than his lips, and then did the same thing. 

Up above him, watching with hooded eyes, Damen was panting open mouthed.

The little kisses moved lower, onto the crease of his thigh and  _ so close  _ but not quite at the ultimate destination.

One of Laurent’s hands slipped from Damen’s thigh and gently, in a touch that was barely there, took his cock in hand. 

Damen’s breathing hitched, hard. Laurent looked slowly up at him, blinked, and bent back down.

He pressed his nose back to the spot he’d kissed first...and took a tiny bit of skin between his teeth, nipping gently.

Damen keened and screwed his eyes closed, head flying back. He balled his fists hard.

He knew not to touch Laurent, not when he was doing this. But sometimes...it took every ounce of willpower he had.

He was also wondering if he might come before Laurent’s mouth ever actually touched his cock.

The gentle nips moved to the top of his leg, the inside of his thigh. It was maddening, and Damen could feel he was leaking into Laurent’s hand, more and more with each tiny pinch.

Then, after a moment of just letting his warm breath wash over the burning, urgent flesh in his hand, Laurent pressed his lips to Damen.

The days of being awed at the ‘frigid prince of Vere’ sucking his cock were long since gone, but the desire, the sheer shockingly arousing vision of Laurent’s lips around him, never lessened. 

Laurent’s mouth took him in, the heat soft and oppressive and delicious. His hand cradled what his tongue could not, caressing the base while his tongue-  _ gods, that tongue _ \- worked in ways he knew drove Damen insane. 

“ _ Laurent. _ ” Damen groaned, every muscle in his body tight with pleasure. 

Laurent hummed, and Damen bit his own tongue to stop from crying out in earnest. 

Laurent drew back, holding just the tip in his mouth, withdrawing more and pulling back Damen’s foreskin, gentle and careful. He looked up again, eyes dark, and applied his tongue.

Damen collapsed forward, only just stopping himself from crushing Laurent as he did. He sat back up, eyes tight shut and felt rather than saw Laurent chuckle under his breath and resume. 

Laurent took him to the back of his throat, and Damen whimpered. 

“ _ Please. Please Laurent. _ ”

Laurent pulled back, and spoke with his lips against the side of Damen’s cock.

“Yes? Something you want?”

“Please may I hold your hand?” Damen blurted, eyes still shut.

Laurent was quiet, only the sound of the fire in the lanterns popping to break the quiet in the echoey cave.

Then, Damen felt wet fingers close around his just as Laurent’s mouth returned to him, and he laced their hands together, holding on as tight as he could.

Laurent’s mouth worked slow and fastidious, but with deadly efficiency, and in no time at all Damen could feel himself nearing the edge. He clasped their hands together, eyes sliding as open as he dared. He looked down.

Laurent was watching him, and when their eyes met, Damen squeezed his hand and came, mouth hanging open as he watched Laurent swallow his release down. 

As he came down, heart slowing and  his frantic gasps waning to a slow pant, he was aware of Laurent gently releasing him from his mouth and pressing a soft kiss against a tiny red mark, where only moments ago he’d nipped with his teeth. 

Not relinquishing his hand for a moment, Damen hauled him up and kissed him, tasting himself on Laurent’s tongue and relishing the aching intimacy of it. 

Laurent slid his free hand around Damen’s shoulder, clutching him close as their lips melted together. 

Their kiss was slow now, lazy and sleepy, thier tongues sloppy against each other. Laurent mumbled against his lips.

“Can we get back in the water?” he said, his liquid lapis eyes sliding lethargically open.

Damen leaned forward and let them fall back into the water, his feet hitting bottom but keeping Laurent held close. 

“I love you.” Damen said in Veretian, voice just barely audible.

Laurent smiled and sighed deeply.

“I love you.” he replied in Akeilon. 

 

 

 

 

 

A short while later, Laurent and Damen strode down the dark lawn towards the stables. Laurent’s wet hair was combed back, his fresh clean shirt stark white in the blue night shadows. He was eating a pear and humming a nursery rhyme to himself, and looking so terribly endearing Damen was grinning.

Damen had neglected to get  _ officially  _ dressed, and had therefore neglected a shirt. He was in simple trousers and bare feet, because he was a king and this was his kingdom.

Damen glanced sideways.

Well...

Half his kingdom.

The stables were warmer than the night air, although admittedly Akeilos never truly got cold, even in winter. Laurent lit a lantern and carried it with them through the dusty darkness, passing curious face after curious face. Many ears swivelled at their progress.

Damen darted forward and grabbed Laurent’s hand. Laurent glanced at him over his shoulder and rolled his eyes, but he was smiling as he did so.

“Afraid of the dark?”

“Mortified.” said Damen.

Laurent laughed and gave his arm a tug. They entered the foaling stalls, and Laurent sighed as he looked around.

“I’ll see if I can find a rug or cooler large enough to cover us both. It was quite cool in here last night.”

Damen yawned and nodded, rolling his shoulders. He wasn’t entirely thrilled about sleeping on a pile of straw, but he also had no interest whatsoever in sleeping in his empty bed. Where Laurent went, he went.

Damen approached the stall and leaned on the door just as Laurent held up what he deemed a satisfying blanket.

“This should do the job. It’s thin, but...well, you throw more heat than a volcano.” 

“Laurent.” said Damen.

“Will you be wanting a pillow? The straw is surprisingly soft- I found I didn’t need one.”

“Laurent.”

“I know you’re worried, but she won’t step on you. Horses are careful like that.”

“ _ Laurent. _ ”

“What?”

Damen grabbed Laurent and dragged him closer. He opened the stall door, and shoved Laurent inside. 

There was a long silence. And then,

“Well, fuck.”

Damen peered around Laurent’s shoulder.

The palomino mare was standing in the middle of her stall, ears pricked forward.

And laying on the straw, wet but alert and wide eyed, was a lovely bay foal.

“Congratulations.” Damen said, and kissed Laurent behind the ear. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you soooo much for reading. Please feel free to come yak with me on Tumblr about all things Captive Prince at DisraeliGearsGoesTumblin. 
> 
> Horses are very secretive about foaling. Two fillies were born at my barn this spring, and both times, we stayed in the stall with the moms around their due date 24/7...and both times the mares waited until we went for food or showers to quickly deliver their babies!

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on Tumblr at DisraeliGears GoesTumblin


End file.
